As the golds of autumn begin to trade out for the grays of winter and night time lows have dropped well below freezing, it’s time for me to admit that I need to begin winterizing our house. The purpose of winterizing is to stop the leaks and save some cash on our winter heating bill. My personal challenge this year is that we still have an offer out on a house and are unsure whether we will be in our current apartment 6 months (or more) or 6 weeks. Since we are hopeful of moving soon, I don’t want to spend a lot of money winterizing someone else’s apartment/duplex. At the same time, if we are going to be here all winter, I would like to take some steps to cut heating and energy costs. Balance is the key.
Mission: Close off unused rooms rather than paying to heat them all winter
Guest rooms, spare bedrooms, the junk room, your college kid’s old bedroom–chances are you have at least one room in your house that rarely gets used. There are several quick and frugal ways to close off these rooms so you don’t pay to heat space you are not using.
Easiest: Just close the heater vent and keep the door closed.
Most heater vents have a tab that you can open or close the vent. This strategy is most useful for a room that will be used occasionally throughout the winter because this quick fix can be quickly undone too(Perhaps a guest room when you know you will be hosting the family Christmas, or a craft room that only gets used once or twice a month).
Easy: Use clear packaging tape over a closed heater vent
Even with a closed heater vent, you will probably hear a whistling sound as some air escapes into the room. To solve this problem, we put clear packaging tape over the vent and completely sealed the vent. This is another quick fix and super easy to undo/redo if you need to use the room later in the year. We used clear packaging tape, but I imagine most any kind of tape would work well. The clear tape is nice because it doesn’t show up as really obvious if someone does peak into the room.
A bit more complicated: Pull off the vent register, add cardboard and insulation to seal off
The most complicated method (although still very simple) is to remove the vent register (this usually is held in place by 2 phillips head screws). Inside the vent push in some insulting material then add a piece of cardboard or cardstock cut to the size of the vent and replace the register. Some good suggestions for insulating material include leftover insulation from your house, pillow filler (batting), or perhaps just an old t-shirt. The insulation will further reduce heat-transfer into the room. This is the most complicated fix, but it still will only take 5-10 minutes. I would only do it in a room that I knew I wouldn’t be using all winter. This is a good solution if you have a big house and all your kids have moved out.
Final Notes and a Warning
The goal of this project is to stop heating the rooms that you are not using. My only warning is this: If you live in an area where the temperature gets cold enough to freeze water pipes, please take appropriate cautions.
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Hi Sunny! seems like it’s been a while since I’ve been by here. Hope all is well with you and your family!
Wow, I never thought of tape, duh! I have an old farmhouse that has lots of rooms. I don’t use 2 of them at all…one is a guest room that is used maybe 3 times a year. The vents in these rooms are really hard to close completely. I’ll have my DH take care of this immediately. Thanks for the simple solutions to a NOT so difficult problem.
Jen, Sometimes the best solutions are so amazingly simple. We actually learned this trick at our last apartment. It was a house that had been split into a duplex, but the heating system had not been completely sealed separate. The upstairs renters were smokers so even though we didn’t get their heat, we did get their stale cigarette smoke coming through the vents (blech!). We sealed off the vents and the one door that used to connect the two apartments. It made a world of difference!
With the one room we sealed off in this house, if I need to work in there a while, I just open the door and let it warm up a bit rather than un-taping the vent for a few hours.
Around me, you can buy sheets of thin, plastic-backed magnets that seal the vents shut. Even easier than tape! Look for them at the hardware store near the weatherstripping and window-sealing plastic displays that pop up in the fall.
What do you do with windows that leak air constantly????
Sylvia–I added thermal lined curtains (picked up for $5.00 at the thrift store). Windows, even tight ones, are a huge problem for heat loss. As the sun goes down, I can always feel a cold chill coming in through the window panes. Otherwise you could make a draft stopper google Door Draft stopper to see what I’m talking about.
very useful tips to be followed at every winter and keep home warm and air tied.
Right after I wrote this article, We bought and move into a 97 year old house. I followed these tips and a few others (using expanding foam to fill in gaps, thermal insulated windows, closing off rooms we didn’t use, space heaters and only heating the rooms we were using). I can’t imagine what our heating bill would have been if I hadn’t used these tips. It was $495/month as it was. This summer we are going to be putting in insulation in the walls and floors as well as updating the windows.
You could also get a coco mat to stop tracking snow in your home. I got one last winter
It’s really good to closed an unused room rather than used it. At least you can save money.
This is a useful tips during winter. I’ll do this in our home.