Easy Ways To Retain The Heat In Your Home - By: Stuart Fendor, Posted on: 2006-11-16

Amongst the most uncomfortable and awful things to face in a freezing winter is a cold house. Spiraling energy bills deter us from turning up the heat, and the alternative appears to be to suffer in silence - the chattering teeth does not allow silence. A quick analysis will tell you if the system is producing heat efficiently or not, if efficiency is not an issue then probably you are allowing the heat to escape.

If you always seem to have the heat cranked in your home, but it's chilly anyways, you could have air leaks that are letting the heat out and the cold in. Check in each room of your house to see if some are colder than others are. If you notice they are, then check around any doors that lead to the outside as well as the windows in the room.

If you do have a draft there are several things you can do to fix it and luckily none of them cost very much money. Rope caulk is a great way to seal up windows. It's very inexpensive and anyone can apply it. If the draft is coming from underneath a door try getting door sweeps which are also very economical.

If you haven't noticed any drafts around doors and windows then check out your chimney. If you have a chimney that's open all winter long you may be letting heat escape and cold air in. When your fireplace isn't in use be sure to close up the chimney and you may notice a huge difference almost immediately.

The sun is a free source of heat energy. With cooking and heating implements in the market that are run on solar power - why should we not use this great source to heat the home. Therefore, if the sun is shining open up curtains to let it in and see the amount of heat that is generated by such a simple thing.

A programmable thermostat is another solution to achieve a warm house and yet keep the energy costs down. A programmable thermostat can be set to lower levels when you are under blankets in bed at night and be set to higher levels when you are awake. This is the easy option to practice to achieve a low bill and yet keep the house warm - the cost of a good thermostat is well justified and makes it all worth it.

An unfinished basement also creates a potential heat loss. Perhaps you think that as long as it's closed off from the rest of the house, there's no problem. But if your water heater is located in the basement, it may be losing heat before the water even gets into the rest of your house. You can buy inexpensive outer casings to provide a protective layer around the heater and prevent heat loss.

If you have tried all these tricks and your house still feels as cold as a museum, you may need to have your insulation checked. While no one wants to hear this, get a few people in to check out if it's doing its job. If you need to replace it, shop around for different contractors, it may cost less than you think. And in the long run it may save you a good deal of money in reduced heating costs.

The way to beat spiraling energy bills and yet keep the house warm is by taking a few precautionary steps that do not cost a whale lot of money and yet are effective.

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About the author: Stuart Fendor is the your host at FL Heat, the best place on the internet when you're after fresh up to date advice and comment to do with Heat. For questions or comments about this article visit: www.flheat.com/articles Why not sign up for our free Heat newsletter at: www.flheat.com/newsletters
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