This is one of the most awkward times of the year: the seasonal in-between. It’s not quite warm enough yet outside to call it a proper Spring, but it’s also not cold enough to be winter. Your house is bouncing between the heating being on to the air conditioning and fans ruling the roost. It’s awkward and annoying, and it’s costing you more than you know. Turning the heating up and then feeling too hot, only to turn it down and feel too cold is why utility bills tend to spike around this time of year. You need to be able to warm up without turning on the heating so that you can get properly warm and finally feel comfortable.
Cranking up the heat can become expensive, but the good news is that there are things that you can do so that you can avoid turning it up and warming the whole house. Your utility bills should be affordable to you, but if you notice that the heating part of the bill is getting up and up and you want to slow that down, then you need our tips below. It’s time to stop busting your budget and get warmed up without the extortionate bills on top of it. Let’s take a look!
- Put a sweater on. In the words of your grandparents, if you’re cold in the house, you need layers! From a sweater over the top of the long-sleeved top you’re already wearing, to fuzzy socks over your day socks, you can layer up and warm up pretty quickly when you do it. If you’re heading outside and the temperature is low, you need to layer up with heated mittens, too. When you’re inside and the temperature drops right down, you can just do the same thing. Layers are your friend, and you can add a Slanket and a quilt if necessary, but you are in your house so it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it looks!
- Buy some slippers. In the outside world, you invest in fleece-lined winter boots, but what’s to stop you from doing that in the house, too? Slippers come in all shapes and sizes, but you can also buy fleece-lined slipper boots that give you the same cozy comfort as the Docs that you bought for walking outside. Keeping slippers to wear around the house when you have cold floors is going to help you to stay as warm as possible. You may find that your feet being cold makes your whole body cold, and the same can be said for your feet being warm. You will warm up pretty quickly when you layer your feet as much as the rest of you. Adding fluffy socks with your slippers can keep you toasty, too.
- Cook on the stove. You may be the king of convenience meals, but using these doesn’t do anything to warm the house. When you’re cooking, use the oven and the stove top for all of your meals and you will be able to heat the house at the same time. The heat that permeates from the oven and the stove can warm the house in the same way the radiators and fan heaters will – and it won’t cost you as much to do it. It’s important that you are adding heat to your home here, and you can leave the oven open after you cook to continue to send heat around the house. You need to remember if you have pets or children not to do this, but it’s also a great way to dry any clothes that you have hanging around the house!
- Eat warming food. Make yourself a cup of tea or a cup of soup to enjoy. Not only will you keep your hands warm as you wrap them around your mug, you’ll warm yourself from the inside out! Soup fills you up at the same time as warming you, which will also keep your body warm. If you keep a simmering pot of soup on the stove, or a slow cooker of hot chocolate to the side, you will have instantly warming foods whenever you want to eat!
- Switch on the humidifier. Humid air generally feels warmer than dry air and if you want to run the heat in the cold months, the air becomes very dry. To balance this, you need to consider using a humidifier in the house and look for the ones that allow you to run cold and hot air!