Winter season is always accompanied by chilly weather that comes with cozy décor together with lazy afternoons that are frequently spent sipping coffee, tea or cocoa at the fireplace. In addition to reducing your activities thus essentially reducing your income, the winter season comes with major increase in electrical bills. In case heating your home is always quite too expensive for you, then you probably are looking for a way to cut such expenses and that’s why you should read on. Below are some of the tips that are employed by the smart savers. These are tips that you can also employ the same to save something for future use.
i. Plastic Wrap the Windows
Try standing next to one of the drafty windows and you will attest to the fact that they are major heat loss culprits. Cold air gets to the house through such windows and the after results is the need for serious heating. By covering these windows with plastic, you will be able to keep the cold air out. The DIY plastic or rather window insulation kits aren’t expensive as they will go for about $20 or less. The plastic sheets are just insulated by the use of insulation tapes and then shrink wrapped by the use of a hair dryer.
ii. Adding a Storm Door
One other way of keeping your house warm is through the creation of some extra padding layer between your house’s elements through the addition of a storm door. While this will be quite pricier during installation, in the long run, you will be able to make reduction of energy loss that may be up to 50 percent. This great reduction of energy loss is particularly possible when you go for the low-emissivity glass made storm doors. Though quite costly and the financial impact may not be realized during this coming winter, in the long run, you will save a great deal.
iii. Installation of a programmable thermostat
Your current system which keeps the heat on a full blast throughout the day is costing you a fortune. Setting the temperature by the use of a programmable thermostat will ensure that your heater is turned off as you leave the house and turned on just before you come back to the house. By this, you end up saving much and at the same time find your house as warm as you would like it to be. By just turning the temperatures back by at least 10 degrees for a period of eight hours a day saves you as much as 15 percent every year on the heating electric bill.
iv. Filling in the insulation gaps
Valuable heat will always seep out through some invisible gaps together with cracks around your house. You therefore should take some of your free time during fall or summer to weather strip or caulk such leaks all over the house’s walls. This will save you lots of money on the energy bills when winter comes. The space between the floorboard and the baseboard together with spaces around windows and behind electrical outlets are some of the areas that are notorious to losing heat and are therefore in great need of insulation .
v. Hanging of thermal curtains
There are curtains which have thermal linings and are worthy investments for all those who stay in areas experiencing weather extremities. These curtains do block UV rays together with heat during summer and will keep the cold air out during winter. Close the drapes during the day and you will be able to cut your heating electric bills by up to 20%.
vi. Reversing the ceiling fan
Most of the ceiling fans are designed with a switch that allows you to flip thus changing the rotating direction of the fan blades. If your fan doesn’t have this feature, invest in one such modern device. Just a simple flipping, thus changing the rotating direction from anticlockwise to clockwise during the winter season and you will be able to push back the hot air that rose to ceiling. Bring this air back keeps the house warm.
vii. Put on a number of layers
It is common sense that putting on some fuzzy slippers as well as some warm sweaters is cheaper than having to crank up heat whenever you feel chilly. Therefore, it is worth keeping yourself warm by having a number of layers at hand while at the same time putting the temperatures just at some reasonable setting.
viii. Improvising of wall insulation
Tearing down your drywall for addition of insulation is a rare option. If this is not an option to you, get clever. Lining of chilly external walls by the use of cold-absorbent materials such as shelve that are filled with books, lining baseboards by the use of cardboards and even the use of decorative screens to block cold air are some of the best options.
ix. Positioning furniture around the source of heat
Rearranging your furniture during winter is important. Place the furniture you most frequently use around the fire place. This makes it possible for you to regulate the heat consumption on the lower side while at the same time having enjoyable times during those otherwise frigid nights.