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Heat Your Home for Less

By Guest Author | December 20, 2011

As we are quickly getting deeper into the winter season, it is inevitable that those of us who live in areas that suffer from the colder conditions are going to be heating our homes significantly more. The cold winter nights have a tendency to sap the heat from our houses and leave us little choice but to leave a heater or two on to ensure the temperature is suitable for the mornings.

Winter heating costs

Doubled with the growing concerns about CO2 emissions, it seems appropriate that we should make a little more effort to find heating alternatives that not only reduce our CO2 emissions, but also the overall cost of our yearly heating bills. Our ultimate goal here should be to effectively heat the areas of our home where we spend most of our time, whist simultaneously reducing the amount of energy we are using.

Remember, multiple electric heaters and designer radiators can be very effective, but there are always cheaper, more eco-friendly options. So, with home heating on our mind, let's look at a few ideas that could help you do just that!

Assess Time Spent in Each Room

It's fair to say that we spend more time in certain rooms of our homes than others; some people tend to congregate in the living room for the majority of the evening, whilst many couples or people who live alone will relax in the bedroom. What's important here is attempting to isolate a couple of rooms in the house where you feel comfortable to spend most of your time; if you only use 25% of the rooms in your home, you only need to heat 25% of it.

If you are a TV bug and enjoy relaxing for a couple of hours in front of the television, consider moving the TV to your bedroom if this is where you like to spend your time, the excess heat emitted from the appliance will contribute to the temperature of your room over time and possibly allow you to turn off a heater for a few hours.

Don't Underestimate Insulation

Insulating your home is one of the best ways to reduce heating expenses. Insulation may seem costly at the time of having it fitted, but it certainly pays for itself over time. A good starting point when looking to see if your property has been sufficiently insulated is measuring the depth of the insulation. You may find that older properties have only 4-8 inches of insulation lain in the attic; the actual recommended depth is 22 inches, so use this as a guide line if you find your property is losing a lot of heat during the winter.
The highest amount of heat transferred to and from most homes occurs in the attic, so adding insulation here not only reduces your heating costs in the winter, but also your cooling costs in the summer!

Wrap up Warm at Night

Leaving heaters on through the night is one sure fire way to add a significant percentage onto your heating bills. Wrapping up during the cold winter nights can keep you warm and encourage you and others in your household to keep heaters off through the night. Sleeping bags are made to effectively contain heat that your body produces through the night; so adding one or two of these to each bedroom can be a huge help. Combine this with a snug winter blanket or duvet and you are sure to find that the cold embrace of winter lies only between you and the bathroom! So be sure to keep some snug sleepwear of a cosy robe to hand if you should need to get up during the night. We also discovered Heat Your Home for Less and they are brilliant for finding heaters that are cheap to run which is amazing right now, so have a look at that if you need some cheap heating for your home.

So there we have it; a few simple ideas that can help you keep warm without over using your heaters for many winters to come!

This article was writtin on behalf of Designo's designer radiators by Daniel Travis - Brown. Follow him on Twitter @DanTravisBrown

Thermostat image courtesy © emmi - Fotolia.com

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