It’s that time of year when summer starts to draw to a close and the winter months lie ahead. If you want to start getting prepared, why not think about ways to retain heat in your home this winter?
There are so many small steps you can take that really make a big difference – not just to you and your family’s comfort but also to the size of your energy bills.
Take the time to think about your home and where you feel coldest or warmest – often just a visual walk around will help you to identify areas and figure out what you can do to retain heat and reduce heat loss.
Here are our tips for retaining heat in your home during the winter months.
1. Install Insulation
If you don’t have an insulated roof, you really should consider it as soon as possible (ideally before winter starts). You might be put off by the installation costs with labour and materials adding up, but good insulation will pay for itself in terms of reducing your energy bills.
Did you know that a well-insulated house could mean a reduction of almost 50% in your energy bills? With greater efficiency and less heat loss in winter, good insulation is truly worth it.
Image: Metroll
2. Check Current Insulation
If you don’t have an insulated roof, you really should consider it as soon as possible (ideally before winter starts). You might be put off by the installation costs with labour and materials adding up, but good insulation will pay for itself in terms of reducing your energy bills.
You can often check your current insulation visually by looking at it and noticing gaps or thinning. If you’re unsure what to look for, you might want to get some expert help to identify the key problem areas.
Image: Green Home Gnome
3. Visually Inspect Your Roof
Before the winter months hit, you want to be sure that your roof is in the best condition possible. This doesn’t have to involve expensive checks and procedures. A visual inspection of your roof can often be just as helpful a starting point as anything else.
You can begin by walking around your home and looking up at your roof – including drainpipes and gutters in your inspection. If you have easy access to your roof via a ladder, you can extend your inspection to checking over the roof from above. The inspection will depend on what type of roof material you have, so you could be looking for loose tiles or gaps in metal sheets.
Image: Stratco
4. Seal Gaps Around Doors and Windows
So many homes are prone to heat loss through gaps around doors and windows. This can account for up to 25% of heat loss, meaning that you’re paying for heat and energy that is simply escaping from your home instead of making you warm and comfortable.
There are temporary measures you can take before you properly seal up all cracks – such as weather stripping, gap fillers and even a simple door snake, which you can put at the bottom of a door. If you want to make your own, try rolling up a towel or thick blanket before you reach a permanent solution.
Image: Sustainability Victoria
5. Block Chimney Draughts
Got a chimney but never use it? Consider having your chimney capped by a professional in order to help retain heat loss in the winter months and make your home energy efficient. Unused chimneys are a key area for heat loss and allow heat to escape quickly and easily.
If you want to keep your chimney for occasional use, you can consider a chimney damper or removable chimney balloon. You can use it when your chimney is not in use, but enjoy the warmth of a fire when you feel like it.
Image: Sustainability Victoria
6. Consider Curtains
Think about your window coverings and how efficient they are. Blinds and shutters have become increasingly popular in the past decade – but it’s actually curtains that will help you to retain heat in your home and avoid unnecessary heat loss on a day to day basis.
Heavy lined curtains with a pelmet are the most efficient way to keep rooms warm by preventing heat escaping through windows. Don’t panic though if you don’t have curtains or if they don’t fit with the design or style of your home – just always make sure that windows are covered whenever possible to retain up to 40% of heat.
Image: Sustainability Victoria
7. Be Aware Of Temperatures
Do you know what temperatures most of your rooms are at the moment? Just raising you (and your family’s) awareness of the temperature within different rooms of your home will help you to work together to avoid heat loss and retain heat in your home this winter.
Generally in winter, you’ll want to heat rooms to between 18-21 degrees (depending on your needs – this is often higher if you have babies or elderly in the home). Use your thermostat to program the temperature if you can. If this isn’t possible, keep your thermostat in your living area so that you can watch it carefully and consider whether things are working efficiently.
Image: ThoughtCo
8. Choose Which Rooms To Heat
If you have rooms that you don’t use during the winter, don’t worry about heating them! Keep the heat where you need it in your home by closing off rooms that you don’t use or that don’t need to be kept warm.
Some heating systems will actually let you turn off the heating in some rooms whilst keeping it on in others. Make use of this function if you have it and you could save hundreds of dollars on your energy bills each year.
Image: ACSIS Airconditioning Warehouse
9. Don’t Forget About Hot Water Pipes
When it comes to insulation it’s easy to just think about the roof. Yet, hot water pipes can quickly become an outlet for heat escaping from your hot water tank to the taps. By insulating hot water pipes with a basic insulating tape, you can help to reduce heat loss further within your home.
A few dollars spent in your local hardware shop buying insulating tape can lead to far more dollars saved in energy bills.
Image: Green Living Ideas
10. Make Use Of The Sun
During the winter months, it’s tempting to keep blinds and curtains shut to keep heat in. If it’s a sunny day though, you’ll want to make use of the free energy that can flood in and warm up your home. Figure out which rooms get the sun at which time of day and try to capture it accordingly. If you have north facing rooms, they’ll get the sun in the early morning, whereas west facing parts of your home will enjoy afternoon sun.
If you have south facing windows you might want to consider keeping these shut on cold days as there won’t be much sun here to make use of.
Image: Energy Sage
11. Get A Timer On Your Exhaust Fan
This might sound like a small thing but exhaust fans in bathrooms and kitchens that are left on can really take the heat out of your home. Although these fans do a great job of removing moist air from areas of your home that need it most, you don’t need them on unnecessarily.
Getting a timer on your fan will help you to ensure you get the best of both worlds. The fan can do its job by removing the unwanted moisture from your home, then it’ll switch off automatically to avoid creating another area for heat loss.
Image: Digitized House
12. Maintain Heaters and Radiators
There’s no point paying out money to heat your home if your heaters and radiators aren’t working efficiently. Make sure you either get your heaters serviced professionally or clean them yourself – always checking key elements such as dust and filters.
For radiators, you want to check that there’s no trapped air in them, as this will stop them from giving out the maximum heat. You can often feel the radiator with your hand to identify cold spots – take note if these are near the top as it could be a sign that the radiator needs bleeding to help it work effectively.
Image: Energy Australia
13. Fill Gaps Between Floorboards
From your roof to your floor – it’s really an all-round effort to reduce heat loss during the winter months. If you have floorboards, you should be aware that heat can escape really easily through these and cold air can quickly find its way in.
Filling gaps between floorboards can be done temporarily – many people use paper mache – but it’s worth investing in getting things smoothed over properly to reduce heat loss long term.
Image: The Green Age
14. Don’t Ignore Evaporative Cooling Systems
In winter months, you may have noticed ducted evaporative cooling systems and the draught that comes through them. Don’t ignore these vents and the discomfort they can create. This is bringing cold air into your home and taking away warm air that you’ve paid to heat from indoors!
Try sealing the outlet in winter to reduce heat loss, or covering the outdoor
Check for unnecessary airbricks in your external walls and cover up any unused vents. It’s really important to double check that the vents are definitely not in use, as covering up a required vent could be very dangerous.
Image: Sustainability Victoria
15. Leave The Oven Door Open
Cooking in the oven generates a lot of heat – but lots of us just shut the door once we’ve got out our food. To maximise the heat (which you’ve paid for), why not leave the oven door open? This can help make your kitchen really warm and cosy.
Letting heat flow into your kitchen from the oven won’t give you long lasting heat, but it’ll make the most of what’s already there. However, remember to be extra cautious if you have young children or pets.
Image: Family Handyman
16. Rearrange The Furniture
Have a look at where your radiators or heaters are in each room. Now consider where the furniture is. Lots of people don’t realise that large items, such as armchairs and couches, are actually blocking an entire radiator in a room. This means that the furniture is simply absorbing the heat and stopping it from reaching you properly.
Moving furniture away from radiators can help to get hot air circulating freely. Think about this if you have curtains that may be covering or obscuring heaters too.
Image: Hydrotherm Hydronic Heating
17. Use Timers To Help Efficiency
There’s been a fair amount of research done into the effects of turning your heating on for a little extra time at a lower temperature, rather than simply turning it up high as and when you need it. You can try this in your own home by using timers on your central heating to get things working at a constant speed rather than using expensive blasts of energy.
Work out when you need your home to be warm (most people like this to be early in the morning when they wake up, and when they get back from work in the evening) and set your timers accordingly.
Image: Domain
18. Avoid Mini Draughts
You’ve done so much hard work to help reduce heat loss in your home this winter – but it’s often easy to forget the small areas where you may be losing heat.
Think about spaces such as your cat flap or doggy door. If you’ve got pets who use a flap to go in and out, try setting this on a timer or reducing the use of it during the winter months.
Image: Sydney Wide Pet Doors
