It is well worth thinking about how you can keep your home warm efficiently. If you’re clever about it, you’ll need less heating, saving yourself money and use less of the UK’s energy – a precious resource and one that it looking at risk. This blog is all about easy changes anyone can make to warm up their homes.
Obviously, before trying these things, make sure you’re wrapped up warm – it’s much easier to heat a person than a whole house! We are often so conditioned that it doesn’t occur to us to put a jumper on before complaining that we’re cold. Next time you go to turn the thermostat up, try these things first.
Block cold draughts
Draught proofing is key to ensure you are not wasting money on heating which is leaking out of windows, doors, chimneys and floorboards.
- Covering bare floors can make a difference to the temperature of your home. Although floorboards can be a lovely feature, it is estimated that up to 10% of household heat is lost through uninsulated floors. If you don’t have carpets, cover your floor with rugs in the winter. Keeping your feet warm will probably leave you less reliant on heating too! Another option to stop heating escaping through cracks between floorboards is DraughtEx. It’s a roll of flexible tubing which automatically expands to fill gaps once cut to size.
- Draught-proofing your chimney is also important. A chimney sheep, made from pure sheep wool, is an easy, affordable and effective way to do this.
- If you notice draughts through the bottom of your windows or doors, keep a couple of draught excluders handy. They can block cold air getting in and prevent warm air getting out.
- Installing heavy curtains and keeping them closed when possible can reduce heat lost through windows by up to 40%.
- Close the doors of rooms you are not using to keep cosy in the ones you are in.
Make the most of your heating
- As well as sending heat out into the room, radiators also produce heat from the back (facing the wall.) Radiator reflectors can reflect as much of this ‘wasted’ heat, which would otherwise disappear into the wall, back into the room. They are really cheap, discreet and easy to fit, and even better, GreenAge readers can get an exclusive 20% discount on all Radflek using offer code TGA20.
- Make sure your radiators are working to full effect by checking if they need bleeding or balancing. Both of these are straightforward DIY tasks.
- Also check radiators are not blocked by furniture – this may seem really obvious, but if you have a sofa in front of your radiator, you’re paying to heat the back of that rather than the room!
- Open the oven door after you’ve finished cooking to help warm up your kitchen – it’s free heating after all!
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