Making a warm, comfortable house this winter does not have to cost a fortune. Protect yourself from the cold weather without breaking the bank through these tips.
Staying warm and comfortable this winter doesn’t have to cost a fortune
Making sure you and your loved ones have a warm, comfortable house to stay in should be your top priority this winter. However, keeping the heat turned on all day long may cause your energy bills to skyrocket. Luckily, there are many ways to stay warm and comfortable without cranking up the heat.
You can adapt to the cold weather by wrapping yourself in warm clothes made from fleece, wool, or cotton. Aside from dressing in layers, you can also wear electric foot warmers to feel as comfortable as possible. Staying active and exercising can also help you keep warm while also boosting your circulation.
Eating warm meals and drinking hot drinks can do wonders for your health while also protecting you from the cold weather. Aside from that, cooking using your oven or stove frequently also produces a lot of heat, making your kitchen one of the warmest spots in your home to stay in.
There are also many budget-friendly ways to design a warm, comfortable home such as:
During winter, the floors in your home start to retain less heat, making them cold as ice. Nobody enjoys the feeling of constantly stepping on freezing cold floors. To solve this problem, you can furnish your floors with carpets and area rugs. By doing so, you can insulate your home’s interiors and mitigate the drops in temperature. By laying down rugs in various areas of your home during the winter months, you can make any room feel warmer.
Carpeting and area rugs should be placed next to your bed to give your bedroom a huge boost of warmth. For your bathroom, a couple of small rugs should be enough to keep your feet protected from the cold tile floor. When it comes to your living room, make sure to place a huge area rug in a central space, ideally near your sofa.
Windows, especially older ones, account for a huge part of the heat loss in your home. They allow heat to be lost through the glass, which exacerbates the drop in temperature in an already cold room. To solve this problem, you should switch out your drapery and curtains for the winter. Install drapes and curtains that are made of a thicker material to reduce heat loss. For best results, you should close your window treatments at night, which reduces heat loss by up to 17%.
For winter, it is recommended for you to switch to thermal window treatments. These reduce heat loss by creating a dead-air space, which keeps cold air from seeping into a room. By installing thermal curtains and drapes, you can reduce drafts in your living spaces, helping you create a warm, comfortable home. To top it off, hanging insulated curtains and drapes reduces the need to keep your heating equipment turned on all day long. In turn, you won’t have to worry too much about getting a ridiculously high heating bill.
If you find yourself reaching for your coat because you feel chilly indoors, then cold air might be rushing into your home through leaks in windows and doors. Air gaps in your windows and doors allow the cold air in while exacerbating your home’s heat loss, which can lead to higher energy costs.
If you suspect that your windows and doors have cracked seals, consider purchasing and installing new ones. You can also hire a professional to make sure they are replaced properly. If you are looking for a quick and easy fix, try placing a heavy towel underneath doors or use a poly foam weatherstrip.
According to an estimate by the Energy Saving Trust, DIY draft-proofing your windows, doors, and cracks in the floor could help you save around £25 per year. Self-adhesive rubber seals around doors and windows and door draught excluders are relatively cheap and easy to install. So it’s worth getting those doors and windows sealed before winter properly kicks in.
Placing your sofa right in front of the radiator may seem like a smart way to stay as warm as possible, but it is actually causing a problem. When placed too close to the radiator, your sofa absorbs a lot of heat that could be warming your entire home. That is why you should find a better spot for your sofa, preferably away from the radiator. By doing so, hot air can circulate freely, ensuring that you can get the most out of your heat source.
Indoor humidity can affect human health significantly. It affects our thermal comfort, which indicates whether we feel too hot or too cold. When the weather is warm and humidity is high, your body will have a hard time regulating heat because sweat is unable to evaporate into the air, hampering your body’s primary cooling mechanism.
Prolonged exposure to a warm, humid environment can lead to dangerous levels of overheating. Heat stress can cause severe illnesses or even death, and it can trigger other problems with breathing, strokes, or heart attacks.
On the other hand, air with very high humidity in low temperatures can make us feel even colder. Because there is more water vapour close to our skin, the cold temperature of the air is conducted to our body, making us feel colder than the actual temperature.
Cold air combined with high humidity can cause skin irritation as well as pull moisture away from your mouth and nose, which leaves your nasal passages and throat dried out. This increases the likelihood of you getting various illnesses, because there is less in the way of bacteria and germs that are trying to get into your nose.
To minimize the risk of health concerns due to unsafe levels of humid air, you need to manage the relative humidity in your home. Depending on the weather, maintaining the ideal level of indoor humidity may need various approaches.
For example, when there is little to no sunshine, strong winds, and heavy rainfalls, the excess humidity and low temperature can easily make people feel uncomfortable. To make it worse, sleeping soundly during this kind of weather is close to impossible because of the excess moisture in your bed. To remedy this, you can use an electric blanket to keep yourself warm and comfortable while you sleep.
On the other hand, when the temperature is warm and humidity is high, the easiest way to stay comfortable is to stay in an air-conditioned room. Make sure to keep the air dry to ensure that your body will find it easy to cool off. If needed, you can try a home dehumidifier, which is built to remove moisture from the air.
There are many ceiling fans equipped with a reverse mode. When you reverse the direction of your ceiling fans, the fan blades will create a gentle updraft that pushes hot air downward and circulates it through the room. Reversing your ceiling fan is a simple way to keep your family comfortable in your home even during the cold weather while helping you save on heating costs.
By nature, cold air goes downwards while hot air rises. If your home has a couple or more stories, try to spend more time on the upper floors to take advantage of the warmer air. Consider moving your home office or TV from the ground floor to upstairs to enjoy a warmer, more comfortable setup.
Just like any other appliance, your heating equipment must be maintained regularly. You should have your heating system inspected annually, ideally before the winter season starts.
In addition to that, you should make sure your heating system can adequately warm your space. Furniture, window treatments, and other items should be pulled away from heat vents, radiators, and registers. If your heating equipment is blocked, the warm air won't be able to circulate.
Beds that are normally positioned right under a window often feel colder, especially during winter. You can sleep a little warmer and more comfortably by moving your bed to the other side of the room away from your windows.
Unless your windows are multi-paned, the glass will tend to cool down by a considerable margin during the night. As a result, the air that is seeping in through that window will cool down, making your indoor air freezing cold. Unless you move your bed away from the window, you will feel too cold to fall asleep comfortably.
In any other season, most experts will agree that a bedroom should be kept on the cool side to make it easier for you to sleep in. However, during winter, an icy cold bedroom can become your biggest source of discomfort. To counter that, make sure to switch to winter-appropriate beddings. Consider getting flannel sheets, down-filled comforters, and extra blankets.
Aside from that, you can also take advantage of the plethora of heating products available on the market such as electric blankets, heating cushions, and foot warmers. If you’re looking for warmth in a pinch, an old-fashioned heated water bottle can help, especially if you are trying to warm cold feet.
Managing your body temperature is more efficient than heating up an entire home. Dress up in layers, wear slippers, drink hot drinks, eat warm meals, and stay active. There are also several products you can use to keep warm without cranking up the heat such as the following:
With a top-quality electric heated blanket in your bed, you can stay warm, comfortable, and happy all winter long. These products keep you cosy and snug throughout the cold season. Wellcare offers electric blankets made with leading-edge technology. Our electric blankets incorporate our BBC design, which improves sleep quality by increasing the temperature of the bed.
BBC design also takes advantage of the product's hundreds of 4D DWF circular holes, giving your blanket breathability and inducing warm current effects to help you fall asleep easier. Not only will our electric blankets heat your bed, but they will also work as an overblanket for short naps on your sofa and an underblanket when you turn in for the night.
Fight off the cold by wearing an electric foot warmer. This product is traditionally used as a home remedy for cold feet. We recommend using electric foot warmers before bedtime, to help you rid your feet of cold for improved quality.
These electric foot warmers provide comfort and decrease the chances of you waking up restless in the middle of the night. On a particularly cold day, opt to use foot warmers while relaxing on your couch while watching TV, or even while working in your home office.
Wellcare’s snuggly heating cushions will help you feel more comfortable, especially in the cold, winter season. They are ergonomically designed, built specifically to provide lower back support. They can also be used to stimulate better circulation in various areas of your body including your shoulders and lower abdomen. In addition to that, our heating cushions are multifunctional—they double as heating pads when you remove the inner pillow!
Our heating cushions were designed with 4D DWF (Dynamic Warmth Flow). This technology mimics our breathing system, allowing for full-body heat circulation. When using our heating cushions, you will feel the warmth and comfort you need to rest, giving you an invigorating energy boost once you get out of bed.
Electric heating pads can concentrate heat on a specific area of your body and can be set at varying levels of intensity. Since you can also choose where to apply heating pads, they are considered a great option when you need to relieve muscle tension or muscle stress caused by overwork or arthritis. Note though, that Wellcare heating products are not medical equipment, offering no therapeutic claims.
Outside of these benefits, heating pads are also perfect for different parts of the body including: the upper back, shoulder, neck, and your knees just to name a few. To keep your toes warm at night, place a heating pad at the foot of your bed and turn it on about five minutes before going to sleep. This way, you won’t have to worry about the discomfort of having freezing cold feet.
From heating pads, heating cushions, foot warmers to electric blankets, Wellcare has a wide range of solutions to help you sleep better and keep your feet warm at all times. For your complete warmth, comfort, and safety, these are made using only the finest available materials.
Our products are also equipped with the 4D Dynamic Warmth Flow system (4D DWF). Innovation in electric heating technology, the 4D DWF mimics the human body’s breathing to ensure even heat distribution throughout the surface of the product.