If you have ever had to survive an entire night in a cold room during winter, then you understand the importance of investing in some form of heating. When dealing with smaller rooms in a cosy house, it could be as easy as getting a space heater, a bunch of warm clothes, and maybe a heavy fleece blanket. It is in larger spaces that exceed 14o square metres that it gets tricky. This is where you need to pull out all the stops, to make sure you stay warm and toasty throughout. To help you get started, here are a few ideas of what you need to do.
Get Yourself A Proper Heater
This will be your most important investment when it comes to fighting the cold. To ensure you get the best heater for your home, there are a few things you need to look, one of which is the heat dispersal method. Home heaters come with either radiation heating, convection heating, or a mix of both. Radiation heating is transferred through electromagnetic waves, which means you would have to be pretty close to the source for it to work. This makes this type of heating unfit for larger spaces. Convection furnaces on the other hand heat the air around them rather than the objects, making them achieve higher air temperature across the room a lot quicker in comparison. The sweet spot is getting one that incorporates both radiant and convection heating, something that is a bit hard to find, unless you are working with one of those high end heaters. The compromise would be to get a radiant heater with fans, which will blow warm air over a greater area such as the Lopi 564HO GS2. This option also works even in rooms that have high ceilings.
Another thing you need to consider when getting a heater is the capacity of heating. This will largely depend on the size of your home, so you should know the approximate size of your home. The type of heating should also factor here, since wood typically tends to burn hotter than gas, all factors remaining constant. A gas heater is however easier to set up since it does not require a chimney to work. The Regency 900L, for instance, is an inbuilt gas heaters that comes with a multi speed fan to help disperse the radiant heat over a larger area. Having been built to heat large rooms, it is capable of heating an area of between 200 and 245 metres squared if space. The output d however dependent on the type of fuel, with the natural gas model giving you 7.8KW while the LPG version gives you 6.3KW.
Insulate Your Home
With large spaces, getting the right heater is half the work. The next step is to insulate your home; it makes no sense to have all this heat and lose it through cracks in your home. There are various ways to protect you home from heat loss, with most of them involving the various places of egress into your home. The windows and doors are where most of the heat is lost. Start with doors, by fixing draught excluders on all the outside facing doors, particularly in the kitchen and living room. These are sealant strips that can be easily bought at a hardware store and the application does not require any previous training; in fact it is just like applying sticky tape.
The next step is to work on the windows. Check it for cracks and crevices, which are how most of the heat in the house will be lost. The process does not require any specialised equipment; all you need to do is use the back of your hand to check for, and identify weak points in the framing of the panes. You should then use putty to fill these gaps and stop the draught from coming in. Some attention should be paid to the attic or the loft. Studies have shown that insulating your loft could save you up to a tonne of carbon dioxide a year, making this one of the best energy saving options. This is an inexpensive endeavour requiring just glue and fibreglass wool.
Invest In Curtains And Rugs
Having thick curtains on your windows during winter is one of the ways to increase the efficiency of your heating system. This works best in large spaces, especially in tandem with proper insulation. The heavy curtains help you reduce the heat reaching the windows in the first place, while at the same time keeping the cold temperatures from the outside from reaching your home. You should also invest in heavy rugs, especially for the areas in the house that have heavy traffic such as bedrooms and the living room. The rugs help insulate from the cold coming through the floor while sealing any spaces that would be in your floor boards.
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