3 Easy Ways to Keep Your House Warm
Photo by Stéphane Juban on Unsplash
Despite some initial predictions for a fairly mild February, much of the continental United States is now suffering through one of the worst polar fronts in living memory. Here at CRE Mainline Real Estate we understand the importance of feeling safe, secure, and comfortable in our homes. With many people in the United States currently facing weather that may make many feel uncomfortable, insecure, or unsafe, we’ve compiled a short list of simple tips for people to follow in order to to help keep their homes warm and their families secure.
Seal Doors Around The House
While some of our more cheeky readers may have memories of packing towels under their bedroom or college dorm doors, stuffing the underside of doors can trap heat as well as smells. For those of us accustomed to battling blistering summers, it might seem second nature to keep doors around the house open. However, this method doesn’t cool the house just during the summertime.
If your house’s walls are not insulated then the heat inside your house can escape not just through the doors but through the walls and windows as well. By keeping doors inside the house closed and sealed, you can prevent heat in one room from leaking out into larger, cooler rooms, or into hallways and out the house.
Not every door necessarily has to be sealed. For example, many sites recommend designating one room close to the interior of the house (the fewer exterior facing walls the better) as a ‘warm room’. These rooms should take time priority when it comes to sealing, while bathrooms can probably go without. Newspaper and old cloth (for all our sewing-fans out there) should be used to seal doors before towels and blankets.
Warm Rooms
As mentioned above, you won’t want to waste your towels plugging doorways when you could be using them to bundle you and your family up. While we have all seen articles or jokes about some people’s obsessive need to collect throw blankets, and if ever there was a time to apologize to our blanket buddies, now would be that time. As suggested above, many recommend utilizing a ‘warm room’ in a house by stuffing it with blankets, towels, and all manner of warm and soft bedding and quits.
While a blanket or comforter obviously helps us stay warm when we sleep, their presence can help keep a room stay cozy as well. Cold hardware and tile floors should be covered with rugs, but blankets can also help keep a room insulated. Spreading soft material around a room will help prevent heat from escaping the room. Extra pillows, towels, and bedding can also be spread over floors or hung over walls when not being used directly. You can use blankets and towels as a ‘jacket’ for the room, where heat in the room can be protracted rather than out through the walls Pets can also give off a lot of body heat.
While some people may usually try to discourage Fido from jumping up on the bed, keeping pets and family close will help conserve body heat between you, and keep blankets and other bedding warm.
Cozy Curtains
In days of yore heavy fabric was hung as tapestries and curtains to help prevent heat from escaping old stone and wooden settlements. While covering one’s windows seems like a good idea in order to prevent cold air from seeping in, there are more ways to take advantage of your windows in cold weather.
Anyone who’s owned a cat can attest to their love for sunny naps, and they have good reason to! Windows work wonders for directing sunlight, focusing it on specifying spots depending on the time of day. While heavy curtains can help make sure the heat already inside your house doesn’t leak out of the house, opening curtains when the sun hits the window is a great way to invite more heat into the house.
Keep your windows closed and locked but pay special attention to the weather and time of day. On sunny days try to follow the sun from one side of the house to the other, to maximize the amount of sunlight coming into the house. What's important isn’t the light, don’t just open all your curtains when the sun is shining.
Pay attention to the direction the sunbeams enter through the window. Does the light on the floor skew towards the east or towards the west? You want to keep only the windows on the side the sun is directly shining on exposed. Think about the cat example, if you have a cat who likes to sleep, does he do it under every window? Or just the ones the sun is directly hitting?
The weather can be unpredictable, but for so many people the appeal of the house is the predictability and control it gives them. Everyone deserves a house that can meet their needs and provide them comfort, and it can be shocking when the circumstances outside the home challenge these notions. At CRE Mainline our thoughts and support go out to the people struggling to keep themselves, their families, and their homes safe, secure, and comfortable.
