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Even the coziest of homes can suffer from air seepage: small drafts of cold air squeezing themselves in between cracks and crevices. But often these minuscule things slip under the radar of even the best housekeepers. Here are a few tips to help you feel warmer and turn down the heat during the cooler months.
- Keep your garage door shut. If your garage is located under your home, it may be an unwanted source of cooling. When the sun sets and the temperature drops, cold air flows into your garage, chilling floors and floorboards. Feet, hands, and heads are especially prone to the cold, and if your feet feel frosty, you’re more likely to turn on the heat.
- Shut your blinds and drapes; use caulk. No, we’re not trying to make the neighbors curious. But shutting blinds and drapes stops cool air from slipping in through tiny cracks surrounding windows and cuts off heat loss through glass window panes. For a lasting solution, you can use caulk, available at any hardware store, to seal up cracks
- Use a doormat. Most doors have small spaces underneath, through which warm air can filter out. Having a doormat on both the inside and outside of your door can help prevent drafts from sneaking in.
- Put down area rugs. You don’t need to have full carpeting to enjoy the soft feel of a rug under your feet. Rugs can help insulate rooms, and keep your toes from touching nippy-feeling linoleum or tile. Rugs, especially in warm colors, can also create feelings of snugness in a room, so you’ll feel like it’s cozier.
- Shut off rooms which aren’t in use, and use space heaters. What worked in the days of the Victorians still works today. See if you can isolate and heat only the rooms you’ll be using most often. That way, doors and vents in other rooms can be shut. Small spaces will stay warmer and heat more quickly, and less cold air will flow in from unused parts of your house. In a home with central heating, hundreds of extra dollars a month can be spent heating unused rooms, generating tons of extra greenhouse gasses. And even if you can afford to heat your entire home, you may not have to. So try warming rooms with localized heating, like space heaters, and using fans to spread heat evenly throughout a room.
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