Surviving the Cold: 4 Ways to Ensure Your Home Makes it Through the Winter
It’s chilly outside this time of year, and if you want to make it through the winter, you need to have a plan for how you’re going to keep your house warm. Drafts and poorly functioning heaters can cause your energy bill to go up. But if you’re like most people, a chilly house is uncomfortable at best, and it might even make it more difficult to do regular chores and activities that you enjoy. If you want to make the most of this winter season inside of your house, follow these four tips.
Seal the Windows
The sealing on windows can break over the years. Weather stripping can help seal out drafts on window casements, and it will save you a lot of money in your energy costs. Place the weather sealing on the bottoms of leaky windows to create a tighter barrier. You can hire a professional to carry out an inspection to see if your windows are starting to break. This is a very simple repair that can end up making a big difference in your home both during the winter and even the summer.
Use Thick Draperies
If you want to create a greater barrier between the windows and the rest of the room, try hanging thicker draperies on windows in the winter. Certain materials, such as velvet, block out winds, and you can even put a lining on them to further block out winds. In fact, there are several ways to use draperies and other types of partitions to block out cold winds. This is also an inexpensive way to block any drafts coming through your older windows as well, rather than having them replaced. When the weather warms up in the spring, you can easily rehang lightweight draperies to let in the light and give the room an airier feeling.
Get Your Furnace Checked
No one wants to get up one morning to realize that the furnace is out. Residential heating maintenance services can check your furnace before there’s a problem, and they can fix small issues before you find yourself in a chilly house. Winter can become a busy time of the year for heating maintenance services, so you want to make sure your furnace is in working condition and that any repairs are completed before the winter even hits. Otherwise, you might be waiting weeks before getting a repair. You should also replace the filter and clean the burners to keep your heating working efficiently. If you’re unsure of how to do these things, you can have a furnace technician do some maintenance for you. A well-working furnace will not only keep your home well heated during the winter, but can also help you save a little extra money on your energy bills each month.
Have a Backup Heating Source
If you want to make sure that you’re comfortable in the winter, make sure that you have some type of backup. If you notice at midnight that your furnace isn’t working, you’ll need to wait until the morning to have it fixed. If you have a fireplace, you can use this it as the main source of heat if you need it for a short time. If you don’t have a fireplace, have a couple of space heaters on hand. It’s always best to be overly prepared even when you don’t think you will need a backup heating source. This will also help you be prepared for any emergency that might cause a power outage.
Keeping your house warm in the winter should be one of your top priorities. Have a couple of backup plans in case things go wrong, and employ a few techniques to keep drafts from windows and doors to a minimum. This will make the long winter months more comfortable for you and your family.
Article submitted by Emma Sturgis, Freelance Writer
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