by Catherine Lear

Created on: January 26, 2010   Last Updated: February 26, 2011

Winterizing your home should be a very important part of your yearly chores after all winterizing your home should save you quite a lot of worry and money.

Let us look firstly at the items in your home that can be winterized.

*Boiler or furnace.

*All pipes that are on show inside and outside your home.

*The loft space.

*Windows.

*Doors.

First, let us look at the boiler or furnace. Most homes will have one of these items, a boiler, or furnace will keep you warm, and will ensure that you will have plenty of hot water all the year round. In the summer months you will find that the boiler or furnace will heat your water you don't need it to warm your home the summer months will do that for you, and if we are honest if the boiler breaks down in the summer months then for a day or two until the repair man comes to repair it we can do with out it. Not so in the winter months you will find that you will have the boiler or furnace running all day and in some cases it will run all night as well.

Therefore, as the winter months approach it will be prudent to have your boiler or furnace serviced by the repair person, far better to pay a small amount of money out to find any fault, than to wait until the depths of the winter months and find that the dam thing will not turn on. And remember that in the winter months that it might be harder for the repair man to get the parts for you, not only that he might find it hard even to get out to even try to get your heating system going again.

Pipes are prone to freeze in the winter months, well it is not the pipes that freeze but the water that flows through them. If you have your heating on in the winter months you will find that the pipes will not freeze, however if on the off chance that your heating system breaks down you will find that the temperature will drop considerably and any exposed pipes will freeze. When the temperature once more begins to raise the water in the pipes will thaw and that is when your pipes will spring a leak. Therefore, the best way to avoid this is to lag any exposed pipes in your home with a good insulation lagging.

This goes for any pipes that will be exposed outside in the garden as well; the pipe that brings the water that you will fit your garden hose to comes under this.

It is has been proved that most of the heat from your home is lost through your loft space, this will mean that you will be paying to heat the air outside your home, so make sure that you insulate your loft space with a very good insulation.

Windows are another source of heat loss. The heat from your home will go right out of the window unless you take steps to stop it. Double-glazing will do just that or even triple glazing; it will act like a vacuum flask keeping the heat of your home in the home were it should be. If you cannot afford double-glazing then why not try fitting a sheet of Clingfilm over every window frame this will act just like double-glazing but without the cost.

Doors are another way of losing heat; a loose fitting door will course no end of cold droughts. The best way to help with this is to fit plastic drought excluders; also, there are very nice looking animal drought excluders that you put on the floor next to the bottom of the door.

The winter months can be very cold in some parts of the world, there is no excuse for you, and your home to cold as well, just a little bit of forethought will save you many a penny and will make the winter months go that little bit quicker.

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