Effective Winterizing and Energy Efficient Tips and Ideas to Save You Money

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With the winter coming on again its getting time to winterize our homes so they can be as energy efficient as possible. Don't let the short little Indian summers your having fool you. That's God telling you that you have a little more time left to get ready for the winter.

Yes, you should take advantage of it to make good on making your home as tightened up as possible. Everybody knows the high cost of gas and electricity to heat the home. Even more so those of you that have those 3000 and up square foot homes.

More space to heat means more cost to do it. There are many things you can do when figuring out how to winterize a home. Winterization options are aplenty. And in this article I'll give you some tips and ideas to accomplish that very thing.

There are lots of ways to winterize both on the inside and outside of the home. Most ways are not expensive to do. All it takes is a little bit of time and elbow grease to git-r-done. But the outcome in saving's wise is tremendous for you.

The Money Saving Tips

So what are some winterizing steps that we can take to save a boat load of money? Here are the ways:

Caulk around the windows inside and outside

You can get tubes of caulk at your favorite hardware store for about 5 to 7 bucks depending on the type you use. A quarter inch bead of caulk around the windows, smoothed out by your finger or a caulking tool to make sure you get all the cracks and crevices.

Also doing the same thing on the inside will make sure your windows are good and winterized for the winter. Saving from the heat escaping around the edges of those windows. Thats a big one! Especially if you have a lot of windows facing the west.

Because thats where most of the wind and weather come from. If you don't have any windows facing the west you're in better shape than most.

Add winterizing plastic sheets to the outside of your windows

These are clear plastic sheets that you install on the outside (can be used on the inside as well) of your windows to aid in keeping the heat inside and cold air out. The best tape to use for this is the good ole "hundred mile an hour tape" commonly known as duct tape.

Why use this tape? It is the most durable and strongest of the different tapes out there. Heck I even hold my truck together with it. It's good stuff. Adding this to the above tip is for superior winterization for your home. Can't go wrong with doing both of these tips.

Run caulk on the outside around the base of your home

Another great tip here for you, is to run about a half inch bead of caulk to the base of your house where the house meets the foundation. It doesn't matter whether yo have a basement or not, in fact those of you that have basements should pay closer attention to this one. As well as those of you that have those crawl spaces.

Doing the caulking here will ensure that no cold air gets into your basement or comes into your house around the floors. You know how you walk around in your socks and bare feet in the winter and you can feel the cold on the floors? Especially if you have hardwood flooring. This will help put an end to that.

Install weather stripping around your doors

Let's see, we covered the windows and the base of the house. Oh yeah, we don't want to forget those doors. The doors are a big concern for the drafts and air that comes in around them. At your favorite hardware store you can get many different sizes and styles of weather stripping.

This is easily installed because most of them have one side that is sticky. Simply install the stripping around the frame of your doors and you have winterization with energy saving super proportions here. I don't think I've ever been in a home where the doors weren't giving up to a draft of air without it. Doing this alone will save you moocho amounts of money through the winter.

Add extra insulation to your attic

Every home has some amount of insulation in the attic. It was built with it installed. We all know that heat rises. The better the insulation in the attic the better the holding of heat in the house. There are several different types of insulation you can get. Just depends on how much your willing to spend.

Probably the most cost effective is the standard fiberglass type. And the easiest to install. I prefer the foam method of insulation. This is sprayed in as a wet almost liquid then as it hardens it expands filling all the gaps and crevices. This is the most superior winterization in my opinion. But more expensive to.

Nevertheless, the point is the more insulation you have up there in the attic will hold more heat in, thereby saving you more money.

Add extra insulation to your walls

With this method of winterizing you should use the spray in type as mentioned. The reason is because you'd have to tear out your drywall to install more. Thats way to much expense. Unless you have the money to spend for it of course.

With the spray in type they just drill small holes in your drywall to allow for spraying it in. Filling holes with spackling is way more easier than replacing drywall. You might have to have some touch up paint of your color to complete the look of it. This is very cost effective, energy efficient winterization just like the above tip.

Do you see what we're doing here? We're tightening up the home so as to hold as much heat or energy in which will result in great money savings for you. Thats the idea. Temperatures from 20 degrees and on down are no joke. Especially when it come to your money today.

Add more cloth based furniture and draperies to your home in the winter

Now some of you might think this is a strange or weird tip to say here. Well just hang with me and I'll prove my point with this tip. For example, have you ever gotten into a car in the winter, and theres leather seats and leather upholstery all over the inside of it? It makes it colder doesn't it! Until your butt warms it up or the heater does.

Now on the other hand, have you gotten into a car that has some type of cloth material for the upholstery? Much better feeling right! Doesn't take long for your body to warm those types of seats up. The same applies to your house. Don't get me wrong I think leather furniture is cool, but it is just much colder then traditional cloth materials.

The reason being that cloth based holds the heat better than leather or vinyl. It works the same with windows as well. Windows with just louvers or just those metal or plastic blinds will be colder than cloth based draperies. Cloth based draperies will hold out more cold air and keep the heat and energy in the house. Which results in energy efficient winterizing savings for you the homeowner.

The Conclusion

In this article I've given some basic techniques and tips to save you lots of money on the cost of living in the winter. When it comes to how to winterize a home, you can't go wrong with these tips and ideas. Some might ask "do I have to do this every winter"? I wouldn't think so, but keep an eye on those areas we've talked about and touch up where necessary.

Especially the caulking areas. Because of the heating up and cooling down of the temperatures throughout the year, can cause the caulking to degrade. You want to keep an eye on this for each winter season. There are other things you can do, just use your imagination.

It is my hope that these cost effective tips will help you to save much money on your heating bills this and every winter season.

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