Save Money This Winter

Winter is fast approaching. What that means to most of us outside of the extreme south is high heating bills. With the economy already in the pits, a lot of people cannot afford to heat their home to a comfortable level no matter if they use natural gas, propane, oil, or electricity for heat, it all costs money. What most of us fail to do to keep these costs under control, is to properly insulate our homes.

While there should be some structural insulation in place, there are always gaps. Most of these are in older homes where many folks are struggling to make ends meet. Since they don’t think they can fix the problems because they have no cash to pay a contractor to come out and properly insulate, there are some easy and affordable steps that can be taken to save you hundreds of dollars over the course of the winter.

The biggest culprit in air leaks in a home is window frames and doors. Some window frames and doors are so bad that the drafts can blow your hair into your eyes. That is just unacceptable and not only raises overall energy consumption but lowers the thickness of your wallet or pocketbook. Doors can be fixed with weather stripping. It is easily applied and the cheap stuff is disposable, to be removed after the cold months.

Windows are another problem. There is no need whatsoever to have use of your windows during the winter. Perform this simple test as advocated by www.diynetwork .com by wetting your hand with water. Run your hand around the window frame and the evaporation of the moisture will make your hand sensitive to all the leaks. I go one step further by saying use this test only around the outside of the frame. Use a caulking gun on the frame to unobtrusively yet effectively seal the frame to the wall. Use indoor caulk (which comes in a variety of colors) inside and seal the outside as well with outdoor caulking.

Once this is done, I highly recommend completely sealing off the entire window with plastic. Before I moved to Florida, I lived in west central Illinois and New Hampshire. This is something my father did every year and I continue the practice not out of tradition, but because it makes good financial sense. We never lived in a house of any value and the paint was cracking in most places anyway around the windows, so my father always used sheets of plastic sealed all the way around by duct tape. The problem with this, is that the tape pulls off the paint wherever it is stuck when you take it off in the spring.

There are a couple of ways around this problem. You could repaint your window frames every spring, but you don’t want to do that. Some kits are sold that include plastic sheets and thick cardboard strips that can be used to tack down the plastic, but I don’t recommend this either. Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse, the paint removal or a bunch of tack holes all around the windows.

The best choice is to spend a little extra money and buy the window sealing kit put out by 3M, the 3M Company 2141. The quality of the plastic is the best you can get and it will last all winter without punctures. Included is the 3M double-sided tape. This tape is a miracle. It is strong enough to stay sealed, yet in the spring, when removed, it will leave your paint intact. This kit can be had for $16.55 from www.amazon.com and covers 62″ x 210″ of window.

This simple technique will save you hundreds of dollars in heating bills. If you haven’t done this before, I suggest thinking about it very seriously this year. Then, compare your heating bills between the year. I will bet you that even with this year’s higher heating costs, your bill will still be lower. Your only other option is to pack up the family and move to Florida. That’s what I did.