- Easy
Ways to Retain the Heat in Your Home
- By Stuart
Fendor
Many people
find cold winters almost unbearable, and if you have a cold house
it can be awful and uncomfortable. Many people hate turning up
the heat due to increasing energy costs, but it seems the only
alternative is to suffer. Not so. Your home may be either producing
heat inefficiently or it may be allowing heat to escape. Keeping
your house toasty and warm may be easier than you think.
If your heat
is turned up high, but you always feel chilled anyway, you may
have a problem with air leaks that are letting the heat out and
the cold in. Check each room of your house; are some rooms colder
than others? If you notice that they are, try checking to see
if any doors that lead to the outside (as well as the windows
in the room) seem to have a draft.
If there are
drafts, you can do several things to fix it. Luckily, none of
these quick fixes cost very much money. One options is rope caulk.
It can be an easy and great way to seal up windows. It's very
inexpensive and easy to apply it. If the draft seems to be coming
from underneath a door try getting door sweeps or blockers, which
are also very inexpensive.
If the doors
and windows don't seem to be the culprit, check out your chimney.
If your chimney is open all winter long, you are allowing heat
escape and cold air to seep in. When your fireplace isn't in
use be sure to close the chimney flue up - you'll notice a big
difference right away.
Sunshine is
a great source of natural warmth, so if the sun is shining open
up curtains to let it in. You might be surprised at how much
heat is generated by doing such a simple thing, and the best
part is its free! You can see how solar paneling would easily
be able to generate enough energy to heat a house.
A programmable
thermostat is another solution to achieve a warm house and yet
keep the energy costs down. A programmable thermostat can be
set to lower levels when you are under blankets in bed at night
and be set to higher levels when you are awake. This is the easy
option to practice to achieve a low bill and yet keep the house
warm - the cost of a good thermostat is well justified and makes
it all worth it.
Heat may also
be lost to an unfinished basement. You may wonder how this can
be if it's closed off from the rest of the house, but where is
your water heater? It may be losing heat before it even gets
into the rest of your house. You can purchase inexpensive outer
casings to protect heat loss.
If you have
tried all the easy tricks and your house still feels like a tomb,
it may be time to get your insulation checked. Of course, no
one wants to hear this. Ask for a couple of consultations to
see if the insulation is doing its job. If it's necessary to
replace it, check carefully and shop around for different installers.
You may be surprised by a lower cost than you originally anticipated.
Besides, in the long run these changes may result in reduced
heating costs.
No one likes
to be cold in the winter, and keeping your home nice and heated
doesn't have to cost you enormous amounts of money. Try these
tips and you might be surprised at the difference it makes.
_______________________________________
Authors:
Stuart Fendor
is the your host at a FL Heat, the #1 source on
the internet when you're looking for fresh up to date advice
and reviews to do with Heat.
For more articles
on Heat visit: http://www.flheat.com/articles
_______________________________________
ARTICLE POSTED February 5,
2008 |
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