The first cold nights always arrive sooner than expected, and with them the temptation to switch everything on and forget about it. Heating your home on a budget is not about being cold: it is about no longer paying for the heat that escapes under a door or through the roller shutter box. These are the measures you notice most, from the cheapest to the most expensive.
Heating your home on a budget starts with sealing the draughts
It is the cheapest fix and the first one you feel. A draughty house never warms up, no matter how many appliances you put in it.
- External doors: fit self-adhesive weatherstripping around the frame and a draught excluder along the bottom (that fabric roll that rests on the floor). That is where most of the air gets in.
- The roller shutter box is the big hole almost nobody looks at. Open it and check whether it is hollow: filling it with a sheet of insulation cut to size completely changes how the room feels.
- Old windows: run your hand around the perimeter with the window closed. If you feel air moving, self-adhesive foam tape on the frame solves it for a few euros.
- Shutters and curtains: lower and close them at dusk, every single day. A heavy floor-length curtain works as one more layer of insulation. And open them during the day wherever the sun hits: that is free heating.
Heat only what you use
Heating an entire house just to sit in the living room is the most expensive mistake there is. Close the doors of empty rooms and keep the heat where you are.
To know what it really costs you, the maths is simple: power in kilowatts × hours switched on = kWh used. A 2,000 W appliance running for three hours is 6 kWh; multiply that by the price per kWh on your bill and you have the exact cost of that afternoon.
- Fan heater: heats fast and uses a lot. It is there to take the chill off the bathroom in one go, not to run for hours.
- Oil-filled radiator: slow to get going but it holds the heat once it switches off. This is the right one for a room where you will be all afternoon.
- Air conditioning with a heat pump: if you have one, it is usually the most efficient option per kWh used. Plenty of people have one on the wall and only use it in summer.
And use the thermostat or the timer: 19-20 °C in the living room and 16-17 °C in the bedrooms is plenty. Every extra degree is paid for on every day of the winter.
Humidity is what makes you feel colder
Damp air feels cold even when the thermometer reads fine, and it also forces the appliance to work harder. Bringing the humidity down is, in practice, raising the temperature you feel.
- Air the place through for 5 or 10 minutes in the morning, with the windows wide open on opposite sides. In that time the air is renewed without the walls cooling down, and it is the walls that are genuinely hard to warm back up.
- When cooking and showering, extractor on and door closed, so the steam does not spread through the whole house.
- Avoid drying laundry indoors in closed rooms. One load releases litres of water into the air. If you have no choice, do it with the window ajar or with a dehumidifier.
The cheapest option is to heat the person, not the house
Raising the whole house by one degree costs far more than wrapping up the person inside it.
- Rugs on tiled floors: the cold rising from the floor is half of what you feel.
- Fleece blankets on the sofa, flannel bedding and thick house socks. It sounds obvious; it works.
- A hot water bottle or an electric blanket uses a fraction of what a radiator uses, and heats exactly the person who needs it.
Mistakes that cost you money
- Turning the thermostat up to maximum so it heats faster. It does not heat any faster: it simply overshoots and uses more.
- Leaving an appliance on all night with a window ajar "so the air does not get stuffy".
- Gas or bottled-gas heaters without ventilation. On top of the carbon monoxide risk, they release a lot of water vapour and fill your home with damp.
- Drying clothes on top of a radiator or a heater. That is fire risk and damp in equal measure.
Start with the first item on the list: half an afternoon spent sealing draughts and putting up curtains and rugs makes more difference than any new appliance. If you are refreshing your home textiles for the winter, take a look at our selection for the home before the frost sets in.