Simple steps to warm your home

The cold months are upon us and it’s time to take steps to make our homes cosy. To decide how best to do this, it’s important to understand some fundamentals. It might seem obvious, but ideally our home will be warmest when it acts like a sealed container, so that the outside cold stays outside and any warmth we produce stays inside. This means we will not only be warmer, but we will use less energy to produce our heat – a win-win. Sadly, many homes are leaky and rely on large inputs of energy to heat them. Short of investing in considerable sums of money, how can we achieve a home that acts more like a sealed container?

Wrap up

Let’s start with my favourite approach, requiring zero investment and some simple changes in behaviour. The first of these is clothing. Feeling cold? Don’t dial up the heating – add a jumper. Toes cold? Don’t run on that power hungry radiator – wear thick socks – or two pairs.

Heat in zones

Taking it a step further, close doors. Many of us have been accustomed to the idea of heating a whole house, when it is far more effective and much cheaper to heat only the parts of the house we are using. Think in terms of zones – those which need heating, such as the lounge/living area and those which don’t, such as the laundry. We can also decide to heat the house only as long as we are awake. With proper bedding we can sleep comfortably without the heater on. In fact, it ought to be possible to turn the heater off some time before retiring for the night. 

Internal doors

If, like us, you’ve removed carpet and have polished boards, there is likely to be a significant gap under your internal doors. Buy (or make), a fabric ‘snake’ to block the gap. The best ones have a piece of fabric extending both sides of the door, with a roll of insulation each side. You can also buy various attachable flap devices to achieve the same result.

External doors

I’m about to seal an external door at our home as I have done previously on another door. Originally properly fitted, the door now has a slight gap – enough to allow cool air to penetrate from the outside. This is one of the problems with older houses around Macleod which are built on stumps. Over time (and with changing soil moisture), there is movement of door frames. I’ll use an inexpensive, simple strip of insulation tape (often called a weather strip). It should close the gap effectively, as it did with the other door.

Windows

Windows are the major heat-loss areas of a house. Double-glazing is very effective, but can be expensive. A simple layer of bubble-wrap can be surprisingly effective by providing an air gap, like double-glazing. Cut a piece of bubble-wrap to fit over the glass, spray the window with water, and spread the bubble-wrap over the glass. Step-by-step instructions on how to do this are here. You should also check for gaps around the window to make the best use of this method.

Window curtains are a great investment and relatively easy to make if you know how to use a sewing machine. They are far more effective in sealing the house than the pull-down blinds we started with. Pelmets make curtains even more effective, blocking warm internal air from connecting with cold glass and external cold air from entering through cold glass and cooling room temperature. Pelmets effectively seal air in or out.