How to winterize your home—and save some cash in the process

[rain day]

How to winterize your home—and save some cash in the process

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Posted By Emily Hsieh Shine Staff, Wed, 3 Nov 12:24 PM

 

[rain day]

With winter fast approaching, our thermostats are about to go into overdrive—and now is the time to start strategizing on what you can do to keep your utility bills to a minimum (without sacrificing your family’s comfort or coziness!). “The biggest thing to watch out for is energy loss, which happens when your home isn’t insulated well,” says Timothy Dahl, founder of home improvement blog Charles & Hudson. Here, a few simple tips to keep your house—and your wallet—sealed up tight.

“You can lose a ton of energy through doors and windows,” says Dahl, “and even if you can’t feel a draft when standing in front of a window, doesn’t mean it’s not there.” When sussing out drafts, the best thing to do is to crouch down low and run your fingers along your baseboards, and feel the areas around the edges of your doors and windows from both the inside and out for cool air. “Small leaks can be hard to detect,” cautions Dahl, who also suggests using this candle trick: light a candle (making sure the air in your room is still beforehand, i.e. no fans!) and move it around the entry points of your windows and doors and watch for flickering in the flame, which means air is passing through. To fill any gaps, just use a standard caulking gun, or pick up an insulation kit, which comes with special tape for making doors and windows airtight.

Follow-up with a visual inspection as well, canvassing the weather stripping around your windows and doors for cracking or rotting. Replace them immediately if you can see wear and tear, and also check the alignment of your doors and windows to make sure nothing is blocking them from shutting properly.

Make sure your heating system is routinely serviced (which should be done annually). Dahl also stresses the importance of proper venting: rather than turn up your thermostat and half-close your vents to control the temperature, leave your vents wide open and lower the temp. This way, you'll know if you have anything blocking up your vent, and also lets you save on your energy bill too.

Dahl is also a big proponent of the programmable thermostat that allows you to schedule heating. That way, you can have the heat on when you wake you up, shut off when you’re at work, turn back on in the evening, and cut again when you’re sleeping—it’s a lot less expensive to heat a home back up than to try and maintain the same temperature all day long. These kinds of digital thermostats are a relatively minimal investment (around $50, give or take), and are surprisingly easy to install (I can vouch having purchased one last month, which my husband, who isn’t exactly an expert handyman, got up and running in less than 15 minutes).

Hot water is another big energy and money suck. Doing something as simple as wrapping a blanket around your hot water tank and insulating your pipes (a heater blanket and pipe wraps are available at any hardware store) can add up significantly in annual savings.