How To Keep Your Home Warm This Winter

Minnesota homeowners are feeling the pain of rising utility costs. Although we have discussed large projects that will make your home more efficient like new windows, we also want to talk about the inexpensive ways to keep your home warm this winter.

Move Furniture Away From Heat Sources

This is a no cost way to help heat flow in your home. This sounds like a no-brainer, but many times a couch, chair, or bed moved during the summer stays there in winter, blocking the flow of heat into the room. This wastes money and leads to cold rooms. With a forced-air system, blocking a supply or return vent can cause a house-wide pressure imbalance that disrupts the heat flow in the whole system.

Stop Door Drafts

Another low cost method to keep your home warm this winter is by finding and concealing draft leaks. A great starting point is to walk around your home feeling for obvious signs of cold air from doors.

Seal door gaps with a “door snake,” a long thin cloth sack, like a bean bag. You can take on a DIY project and make one yourself. Using scrap fabric, fill it with dried peas or rice, something to make it heavy enough to stay in place. You can also keep the heat where it’s needed by making sure some interior doors, such as those leading to hallways or near stairways, are kept shut. This closes off natural air passageways so they can’t act as chimneys, allowing warm air to escape up through the house.

If you feel cold air seeping beneath a door leading outside and find that using a door snake is inconvenient, install a draft-defeating nylon door sweep. This long, thin broom-like vinyl-and-pile attachment gets installed along the inside bottom edge of the door.

Quick Seal Windows

You have likely noticed that windows, especially older windows, are cold when you are near. This is another great way to increase your home’s warmth. Dead air is a very effective insulator, and you can create a pocket of it by installing clear plastic film across the inside of your windows. Available in kits that contain plastic film and double-sided tape, the plastic becomes nearly invisible when you heat it with a blow-dryer. If you find it unsightly, place the film on windows and patio doors selectively or only in unused rooms.

Measure your window before buying; kits vary in size, and they work only with wood, aluminum and vinyl-clad molding. Heat lost through windows accounts for 10 to 25 percent of your overall heating bill.

If you can rattle your windows, they’re letting a lot of heat escape around the frames. Seal the open spaces with puttylike rope caulk before shrink wrapping.

Add Rugs and Curtains

This may cost you more than the other options depending on what brand and style you choose, but this will provide results while enhancing the look of your home.

Did you know you can lose about 10% of the heat in your home through uninsulated floors, such as tile and hardwood? Throw a few area rugs in those rooms with hard-surface floors, especially in finished basement rooms, to help reduce heat loss and keep your feet warm.

Thick drapes or curtains can serve as an additional layer of insulation for windows. Use them to your advantage during the colder months to keep the window chill out and the warm air inside.

Reverse Ceiling Fan Spin

Spinning counterclockwise, they move air around the room. Not all energy experts feel it’s a good idea to use them in the heating season, but the fans do help bring heated air down to earth in rooms with cathedral or high-sloped ceilings. That’s only if you slide the reversing switch on the side of the motor housing to the winter (clockwise) position. Then run the fan at its lowest speed. If you can’t reverse the blade rotation or if you think the fan is cooling off the room too much, leave it off.

With three offices in Mankato, St. Paul and Maple Grove, we have got Minnesota covered. If these low cost solutions aren’t enough to make your home comfortable, it could be time to look at new windows or doors, and we are here to help. Contact us today to ensure your home is ready to take on the cold winter months ahead.