If your guests have been asking you if you’re hiding the Toros cheer team from Bring it On somewhere in your house or apartment, it’s probably time to start considering winterizing your rental because seriously – BRRR it’s cold in here!

All great awful movie references aside, if you’re tired of spending an arm and a leg on trying to heat your place, you need to try a few of these simple hacks to keep your rental warm while lowering your winter heating bill.

Smoke *Sage Everyday … To Check For Drafts
If you’ve ever walked through a room and gotten a random chill, you have two potential problems: a ghost or a draft. The ghost is more fun, but the draft is more common, especially in the kinds of older houses found around college campuses. Finding and sealing drafts is one of the biggest ways you can save yourself money during the winter.

You can find drafts (honestly, and ward off ghosts too) by wafting burning sage around the room. If the smoke drifts sideways in a certain area, you’ve found the draft. There are a couple of different ways to fix drafts, but the general idea is to cover the area with the draft to stop or slow the escape of warm air.  If the draft is especially problematic, you can call your landlord and have them fix it.

Like the Cha Cha Slide, you need to Reverse Reverse … the Direction of Your Fan.
Here’s a plot twist for you – if you have ceiling fans in your rental, turn them on = they can actually help keep your place warm during the winter. But how you may be asking?

When ceiling fans are going in a counter-clockwise direction, they pull warm air up to keep the room feeling cool. But when they are reverses, they push the warm air towards the ceiling down to keep the room feeling warm. To reverse the direction of a ceiling fan, just grab a ladder and check for a little switch on the fan and move it in the opposite direction.

Pro tip: Turn the fan off when you leave the room to conserve electricity.

Pull Out Your Apple Bottom Jeans and Boots With the Fur
Unless you’re from the midwest where it’s a gosh darn badge of honor to wear light jackets at below-freezing temperatures, we’re sure you wear more layers of clothing when you go outside to, you know, keep yourself warm?

Well, let’s bring that forward thinkin’ notion to break the cycle of spending too damn much on heating bills by wearing more clothes … inside. Not really rocket science here, but by wearing more clothes indoors, you’ll be able to keep your thermostat a little lower and save some money.

How Low Can Your Thermostat Go?
Speaking of lowering the thermostat temperature … have you thought of just lowering the thermostat temperature? Seriously, if you have your thermostat set to a balmy 75°F, you’d be better served lighting your money on fire to keep warm.

According to Energy.Gov, the most efficient temperature to keep your residence warm during the winter months is 68°F. You can also save as much as 10% on your heating costs by turning your thermostat back 7° – 10°F during times of the day when you’re not in the house.

Love, and a Lower Utility bill, is an Open Door
The last hack requires you to be a little more open – and by that, we mean you should try to leave your bedroom doors open whenever possible. Yeah, we know – sleeping with your door wide open is a little weird, but it’ll help circulate the warm air-flow throughout the house.

Pro tip: Close off doors to rooms that you don’t really utilize need to heat.

Additionally, if you decided to take a boiling hot shower – try to leave the bathroom door cracked, or wide open, to let the humidity warm the house. Cracking the door versus leaving it wide open will depend on how comfortable you are with your roommates.

Surprisingly, all of these hacks will cost you little to nothing and will help save you big bucks over the next few months.

So, which of these hacks did you wish you knew about sooner? 

2024-12-21 11:13:11 Dominic Anzalone