by red46

Created on: December 16, 2011   Last Updated: March 10, 2012

How to winterize your home for the winter

Most new homes are well insulated and tight enough to hold in the heat. Older homes sometimes are problematic and need some help during the winter months.

We all know to cover the windows with shrink plastic that you can buy at Walmart or most hardware stores but did you know there are air leaks around the electrical outlets? A quick fix for outlet air leaks, is just a strip of packing tape across both outlets, and then just plug in breaking through the plastic. Sometimes the air leak is bad enough; it is coming in around the wall plate. In that event, it is best to remove the plate, cut a piece of plastic the size of the outlet plate, put the plastic between the outlet plate and the wall before screwing it back on.

Check under the cabinets where there is a sink. Sometimes the hole that allows your water pipes to come through the floor, are too big and allowing air to pass through. A cheap and quick fix is to use all those plastic bags to stuff in around the pipe, plugging up that gap. Check for every pipe coming into the house, water pipes, gas lines, drainage pipes, to make sure there are no air leaks.

On those super cold nights, a gap under an outside door is a disaster. We don’t all have the money to run out and buy bottom door strips. If you happen to be handy with sewing, and happen to have a strip of fabric at least as long as the width of your door, you can create a tube about 3” or 4” wide, stitch up one end and fill the tube with beans. Don’t pack the tube too tight, as you need space inside to manipulate the shape. Close up the other end and on those windy cold nights; place your bean tube across the bottom of the door to block off that draft.

If your home has a fireplace, be sure to close that flue when there is no fire burning. Heat can escape through your chimney. Don’t forget to open it before starting a fire. Most wood stoves have a closure so there shouldn’t be a problem there.

It is getting more expensive, every year, to heat your home. Why heat a room that is not in use? Rooms you seldom enter should have the door closed and the heat vent closed off.

If your home has central heating, you have control over the amount of heat each room gets. If you think about it, you will know which ones to shut off, close down to about half or leave open all the way. You don’t need as much heat in the kitchen as you do in the bathroom. Close off the heat vent, in the kitchen,

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