Keep a Warm Home all Winter with These Helpful Tips
It’s time for comfy sweaters, wool socks, and thick, heavy blankets. Get ready for winter, and a warm home, because the cold front won’t be leaving South Jersey for a while. Although socks and sweaters do wonders to keep us cozy, without a warm home, to begin with, it will feel like an extremely long winter.
Start this winter off with a warm home and keep it that way all season.
At Laury Heating Cooling & Plumbing, we want your family to be comfortable during the harshes of South Jersey winters. Correspondingly, we came up with 10 tactics to keep the heat inside of your home this winter. By staying mindful, these tips will save energy, heat loss, and also a buck or two.
Here Are 10 Ways to Keep a Warm Home When the South Jersey Temperatures Start to Drop:
Tip One: Consider Curtains
Curtains are something most homes have in their closets or they’re already hanging in the windows. It may not seem like curtains help, but if you use them correctly, they can help add a bit of insulation to drafty windows. When the winter wind is blowing hard, close your curtains to keep the drafts out and the heat in. Besides, who couldn’t use a bit of extra warmth on those extra blustery days?
Also, the sun is a free source of heat. Why not use that free heat during the day? Open the curtains on sunny winter days and let in the warmth. In contrast, shut those curtains up at night to keep the heat inside. Small changes do make a difference when you are trying to maintain a warm home.
Tip Two: Utilize Window Shrink
Available for purchase at any local drug store, Target, or even on Amazon, window shrink is an easy, affordable purchase that will help keep your home warm. These plastic seals are easy to install and keep the heat inside your home from escaping. In fact, using window shrinks can create a 50% decrease in heat loss alone!
Just put in a little elbow grease and half an hour of your time; trap the heat by efficiently insulating your windows. Check out this easy step-by-step guide on the best way to install the window shrink properly.
Tip Three: Ceiling Fans & Fireplaces
Sometimes, the best parts of winter include the moments you spend sitting by the fireplace with a cup of steaming cider or hot chocolate. At the moment, relaxing next to the roaring fire is keeping you warm and toasty. However, it isn’t all that effective at heating an entire home.
If you aren’t careful, you can create a stack effect in your home. During the winter, warm air rises through your house and escapes through vent openings and unintentional holes in the ceiling. It’s important to realize that if heat can escape from a warm home, it will. The rising warm air reduces the pressures at the base of the building and draws out the cold air.
That being said, if you do have a fireplace, you should be able to use it. So, here’s how to get the most out of the heat from your fireplace. To keep heat from rising and escaping from the fireplace here’s a great trick – have your ceiling fans spin clockwise. This will push the heat down and keep it in.
Tip Four: Install a Programmable Thermostat
A great way to remove the guesswork, and save costs on your heating bill, is to install a programmable thermostat. This will allow you to preset temperatures for different times of the day. For example, you can program your thermostat to make your home warm while you’re home and cooler when you are away at work.
Programmable thermostats not only save you money, but they can also create health benefits. When you keep your house cooler at night, it can help speed up your metabolism. Check out this helpful article on the recommended temperatures you should maintain in your home for health benefits.
Carrier Cor Programmable Thermostat
Tip Five: Rearrange Your Furniture
Rearranging the furniture in your home is one of the simplest, and overlooked, things you can do to keep a warm home. Whether you have radiators or heating vents on the floor, make sure your furniture isn’t blocking the heat or airflow.
Take a moment and walk around your home. Check to see if anything is obstructing those vents or radiators. Blocking these can create a fire hazard, especially if it’s a forced air system.
Tip Six: Insulate Your Water Pipes
Insulating your pipes is another way to prevent unnecessary heat loss in your home. With insulation sleeves around your pipes, you can cut your wait time for reheating the water. A bonus is that it can help prevent your pipes from freezing over during our bitter South Jersey winters.
When your pipes freeze, you no longer worry about keeping your house warm, but about how much money it’s going to take to fix it. Save the worry!
Tip Seven: Keep Cooking in the Oven
Yep, using your oven is like using a space heater. You now have the perfect excuse to start baking cookies, pies, and everything in between. Using your oven is an ideal way to warm up your home and enjoy the aroma of a tasty, home-cooked meal. Firing up the oven creates a toasty kitchen that will radiate warmth out to the surrounding rooms. This time of year is the perfect time to pull out Grandma’s recipes and test your holiday baking skills!
Tip Eight: Dig Out the Humidifier
Dig out the humidifier for an effective trick that will add a bit of extra warmth to the one room that perpetually seems colder than the others. Using a humidifier also gives any room a cozier feel. The fact of the matter is that the more moisture there is in the air, the warmer the room feels.
Winter, despite the snow, is an incredibly dry season, so getting your hands on a humidifier can have great health benefits, whether you’re healthy or ill.
Tip Nine: Insulation is Your Friend
Just like your windows, there are plenty of nooks and crannies that you can quickly close off with insulation. The more preventative measures you take, the more heat you will preserve to maintain a warm home.
Perhaps you have some pipe insulation left lying around? Take it and slide it along the underside of a drafty door.
Try grabbing some insulator tape at your local hardware store. Use the tape in the cracks between the door and the frame, or maybe use it on a window you didn’t use window shrink on. Keep an eye on any crevice you may need to tackle to have a secure home.
Tip Ten: Maintain Your Heating System
All of these preventative measures will help conserve heat in your home, but it’s also extremely important to stay on top of your heating system maintenance. Your best and most assured way of keeping your home warm is to make sure your heating system is up to date by staying on top of its required maintenance.
There are plenty of opportunities to make an appointment now for your annual heating system service. Luckily, at Laury Heating Cooling & Plumbing, we are always ready to go. Should we schedule that heating service check-in?
Keep a Nice, Cozy, and Warm Home This Winter
Brace yourself for the upcoming winter season by staying ahead of the weather. Keep an eye out and see if there is a possible drought when you’re walking through your home. Try these tricks and tips out in your home and tell us how it goes.
Here’s to warm wintertime in your South Jersey home!
