Top Tips For Trapping Heat In Your Home This Winter

There's nothing worse than getting in from a bitterly cold day and finding that your home is almost as cold as it is outside. Without proper insulation, heat from escape from a home almost as quickly as it enters, making winter quite an unpleasant experience. It can also make winter a costly experience, as energy expended on fuelling heaters is wasted as the warm air escapes the walls of your home.

Insulating your home can be quite a costly process but there's no doubt that the long-term savings you'll make on your energy bills will outweigh any initial costs. Here's a few tips for trapping heat in your home this winter.

Choose the Right Window Covering

In a rush to install costly insulation, many people overlook the benefits of the little things in keeping their home warm in the winter. Your choice of window covering is one such 'little' thing; although it may not seem like a thin piece of fabric over your window would make much (if any) difference to the temperature of your home, it can actually make quite a bit of difference.

Although both are relatively good at trapping heat, there are a few difference between curtains and blinds to keep in mind. On the whole, curtains are generally made of thicker material which would seem to make them the obvious choice. However, the slightest gap in a set of curtains can actually make a lot of difference in terms of heat escaping.

A more reliable option are roller blinds, which consist of solid sheet of material that covers the entire window. These blinds are usually set close to the window itself, so heat has less chance of escaping.

Time The Opening and Closing of Your Blinds or Curtains

It sounds crazy, but a great way of ensuring that your home stays hot in the colder months is to actively monitor when you open and close your blinds or curtains. You don't need to go as far as keeping a physical schedule but you should make sure your blinds are open during the daytime hours - especially on a rare sunny day - and closed as soon as the sun goes down and the snappy night draws in.

By doing this, your home is heated naturally during the day and then subsequently 'trapped' by the blinds. This should save you a lot of money on artificial heating.

Keep Doors Closed

Another simple tip, but another tip that's extremely effective. It can seem a bit antisocial to close doors in your home, especially if you have a family who tend to spend a lot of time in separate rooms. However, leaving all the doors open in your home leads to heat 'spreading' around the entire house, decreasing the heat levels in certain rooms and making the entire house seem a lot colder as a result.

Allow Your Radiators Proper Circulation

Many people use their radiators as a towel rail or clothes dryer and there's no doubt that it can be useful for this function. However, doing this reduces the level of circulation your radiator provides, effectively rendering it useless as a way of heating your home. The same goes with placing furniture close to a radiator. Give your heater a little more space to breath, and you should notice the benefits sooner than you might imagine.