Don’t Neglect HVAC Issues
Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning tend to be services covered by specific professionals. There are heating experts, and there are A/C experts, but generally, the same expert does both as an HVAC specialist. You want to be sure whatever interior atmospheric controls you’ve installed are in proper working order.
If your home gets too cold for too long, pipes can burst, which can cause extensive damage that costs tens of thousands of dollars to repair. When premises get too hot, there are collateral structural issues. You need homeostasis that is maintainable, and as winter comes, you really want to think about how things are looking presently.
Provided your current HVAC infrastructure is in solid working order, you might just want to have a 24 hour furnace repair business on speed dial. It can also be worthwhile to work with such individuals for maintenance on a regular basis. You might have the pros check out your furnace once or twice a year before and after Christmas. Following we’ll explore a few different things you can do to keep your home warm during the cold months, and collaterally preserve its structural integrity.
1. Seal Windows and Doors
One thing you’ll want to do to keep the house warm is checked into weather sealing. Windows and doors should have weather sealing in place that doesn’t allow drafts in. You can check each entry vector of your home to ensure it’s in good shape, and if it isn’t, reseal it. There are foam and caulking solutions, check out this link for best practices.
2. Tapestries, Carpets, Curtains
A tapestry on a wall, a rug on the floor, and varying items like these at a home’s internal periphery represent “heat sinks”, if you will. Rugs can inhibit drafts that might come through the floorboards from making a room cold.
Even a drafty door won’t mess the house up too much if you’ve got floor-to-ceiling curtains hanging in front of it. Tapestries and curtains hold heat. Basically, try to use your home’s décor in a collateral way for the purpose of retaining internal heat.
3. Lower the Thermostat, Use Collateral Heat
Your home’s thermostat will command more stress from your furnace if it’s always high. Your home’s furnace is a mechanical device that will wear out over time with steady use. A good idea to keep it functioning properly for longer is to reduce baseline heat. Instead of setting your thermostat at 75, keep it at 65 year-round. You can use collateral heating to fill the gap. Layer up, use electric heaters, and when you cook over a stove, let all that heat into the house (while being safe). Some people even set up dryers so their exhaust comes into the home during winter. It’s as easy as plugging or unplugging the dryer vent. This may not be ideal, but it can help.
Keeping the House Warm
Lower the thermostat, use collateral heat, consider tapestries, carpets, and floor-to-ceiling curtains, and seal the premises. These tactics should help you keep your home warm even during the coldest times of the year.
Finally, even if your house is perfectly configured to withstand the cold, you want to be sure you’ve got some 24/7 emergency heating service available.