Laying Traps: How To Keep Heat From Escaping
Throughout the world, we utilize central heating systems to keep our homes warm and toasty. In the colder months we feel the need to have the heating on regularly and we’re more than happy to pay through our nose to do so. This can account for over two-thirds of the total household consumption of energy for the entire year. In just 4-5 months, we can burn through hundreds of dollars if not thousands of dollars depending on the size of your home. However it’s not about how long you can keep the heating on to achieve optimal temperature, it’s about how many traps can you lay. Heat is always trying to scurry out from underneath our home and leap outside and run free. We must do everything we can to not let it escape. Not only will you be saving a lot of money, but your home will be meeting many eco-standards that governments around the world are implementing at an accelerated pace. You may also want to try installing Geothermal Heating and Air systems to be more eco-friendly. Here are just a few ways you can start.
Two sets for everything
Let’s couple spring with summer and autumn with winter. Two sets of 6 months, which means you need two sets of everything in your home. If you have a welcome mat for your home during the warm months, then you need a rugged wool rug for the cold parts of the year. If you have thin curtains for spring and summer, you need thicker curtains for the autumn and winter. The same goes for your duvet, you need to have a thicker variant for the latter part of the year. If you have cushions for your sofa during the breezy seasons you should have fat cushions for the bitterly cold seasons.
Essentially, the more mass you have in your home during the colder weeks and months, the more heat will be trapped in your home. The curtains will push the heat back into the middle of the room and cover the ceiling. The dense woolen rug will play a small role in keeping gusts of cold winds that seap underneath the front door from reaching further into the home. The thicker duvet will absorb a lot of the heat from your central heating and be ready for you when you finally go to bed at night. This way you don’t have to keep the heating on for a large part of the evening.
Creating a barrier
One of the smartest yet simplest ways to push heat back from the windows is to move your furniture closer to the center. When a leather sofa is by the window, it will lose heat very quickly because the cold outside and the inside heat are in a constant flux of trying to achieve equilibrium. Thus, if you were to move your sofa away and closer to all the other decor pieces, the heat would be kept in a small central area. Quite simply, you create a barrier from the cold outside but also a close-knit circle for the heat to remain trapped.
Holding up a shield
The roof is where the major battle will be won. Heat rises so your roof is actually where the heat in your home escapes the most. Yes, even the heat in your kitchen will gradually make its way up the staircase, into your bedroom, through the ceiling and out through the shingles on your roof. It make take hours but it will happen. It almost feels like you’re trying to hold a tide with a broom. However if you make an appointment with a company that has a radiant barrier installation service, the battle can be won. This service will involve spraying a coating of LO/MIT onto the underside of your roof-line. When the sunshine heats up your shingles, the heat that was trying to escape will be forced straight back down. The heat from the sun is naturally transferred into the attic which then radiates downward.
A cheap trick
This one is as old as time. Just grab a towel or a thick cloth made from cotton or wool, and put it in front of any small gaps. Any window sill and door in your home needs to have something in front of it to act as a bulwark against the cold and blocking warmth from escaping.
Lay as many traps as you can throughout your home. The heat is trying to escape all the time. By having two sets of everything, you’re ready to trap the warmth with thicker and thicker decor pieces. Push the furniture closer together and especially away from windows.