Keeping your home warm and cozy during winter might result in doubling your electricity or gas bill. Winterizing your house can be quite a logical thing to do if you want to avoid access expense by paying bills. Among many other alternatives, winterizing will give you the most efficient result as you stay cozy in your winterized home.
Winterizing your home is not as easy as it sounds, but if you know what you are doing, you will find it quite an experience. The process includes providing additional insulation in attics, sealing up leaks, whether it’s on windows, door or furnace, and clearing up rain gutters. If you lack knowledge on how to winterize your home, the detailed guide below will make things easier for you.
Read: How to cover your window for winter?
Winterizing Your Home Checklist!
Before jumping ahead, you need to make sure you have the necessary tools at your disposal in order to efficiently winterize your home in the proper way. As we discussed earlier, the task is not easy and will require some extent of knowledge and specific tools to carry out effectively.
Preparation for winterizing your home needs to start earlier before the arrival of winter. So head on out and grab yourself a shovel. Also, don’t forget to store extra water and canned foods, which will save you a trip to the store in shivering wintery nights. Below is a checklist showing you things that are needed to be done.
- Start from under your house as water is jammed in gutters due to the blockage caused by falling leaves in winter. So installing leaf guards and cleaning downspouts sounds like a perfect place to start mid-fall.
- The next thing to do is to ensure enough blockage is present on windows and doors through which air can enter. Applying caulk and weather-stripping will get the job done while installing double-paned windows will reduce the wastage of energy.
- Ensuring enough heat production from inside your house by replacing furnace filters, test running heater, and seeking experts’ advice will give you an edge in winter.
- Cleaning up your chimney and checking whether the wood stoves are functional also helps. Doing this will also enable you to look for damages that can be worked on earlier.
Read: Fire Safety tips for winter
How to Winterize an Occupied House?
While winterizing an occupied home, preparation is the key. It will take more than just bringing out your coat and hand gloves to protect yourself from chilly winter. You should have a plan ahead to install, clean and replace your home heating system to get an upper edge in winter.
Winterizing an occupied home can be quite tricky as you are living on the house at the same time you are preparing it for the winter. If you know what you are doing, you might do it effectively. Here are the things that are needed to be done to prepare your occupied house for winter better.
- Before the arrival of winter, makes sure to clean your gutter and remove tree leaves, acorns, and sticks that might store water under the house.
- For heavy snowfall, make sure to have a snowblower prepared earlier so that you might not get stuck under it and arrive late for work.
- Make sure your fireplace and chimney are cleaned and ready to function correctly.
- Block leaks on the window and door so that warm air can’t escape through them.
- Install double panned window, which is far more effective in winterizing your home.
How to Winterize a House with no Heat?
Often you will find yourself leaving your home to go somewhere else for a few days. The issue here is that you can’t just leave the house with heaters on the inside. So how do you winterize a house with no heat?
The trick to winterizing your house with no heat is to ensure that there is no water clogged up on your valves as well as on your clothes or in any item that might hold water. These are the only way that your house might get cold when you are outside. Here are the things you can do to winterize a house with no heat.
- Get yourself a professional to ensure that a draining system is present for the valves. You may seek help from a plumber.
- You might install air compressor tanks that will be of great assistance in keeping your house warm.
- The less moisture is present inside the house, the warmer the house will remain.
Read: How to keep a house warm without insulation
How to Winterize a House with Radiators?
Radiators work as an excellent heat emitter and keep your home warm during winter. From various radiators present out there, including hot water radiator, steam radiator, and heat towel rails you should pick one depending on your preference and budget and get it ready for winter.
To ensure that your radiator stays functional and the entire heat distribution system works as intended, you can follow the following steps to winterize your home with a hot water radiator effectively.
- During a long period of time when a radiator remains inactive, after draining it, air might prevent water from filling the radiator, which will create a problem. So the first step is to use the “bleeding” technique, and it should be done at least once a year. This will keep the radiator functional
- To winterize your home with a steam radiator, the bleeding won’t be required as it already has an automatic venting system to let the air out. However, if you are concerned about the vent, then turn off the steam supply, turn on the hearing system at full pressure and lastly open the supply valve. Doing this will let the air out.
These processes will feel almost effortless if you carry them out sequentially and will help to keep your house warm during winter.
Read: Ways to keep your grass green in the winter
How to Winterize a House with a Well?
Often, vacation homes are considered as seasonal homes and left unattended during the winter season as they are not adequate to sustain the cold of winter. So how do you close your vacation home and winterize its plumbing?
The following steps will help you to winterize your vacation home with a well.
- The very first thing you should do is close down the water supply to the entire house.
- The next step is to drain your house’s water system by turning every tap of the house.
- As a bonus step, also turn down the power to the water pump so that no one can turn the water supply back on while you are away.
- Loosen the hose using a screwdriver and use buckets to sustain the dripping water from them.
- Tilt the pump to squeeze out any remaining water.
How to Winterize a Vacant House?
While you are away on a trip of someplace far from your home for a more extended period, you need to winterize your house before head so that it doesn’t deteriorate. Your house might undergo a heavy blow of winter, and you need to protect it while you are away.
Winterizing your vacant house is not that much of a hard task if you know what you are doing. You can winterize your empty home quite easily with the following simple steps.
- Drain the water supply of your entire house down to the last drop so that no amount of moisture keeps present inside the house.
- Keep your thermostat level above freezing to let the inside of the house dry.
- Turn your humidity indicator up to maintain a dry interior.
- You should also prioritize clearing your house of any moisture item, including your fridge, which might hold food or water inside of it.
- To take care of the outdoor of your house, keep the items inside so that it doesn’t suffer a loss during winter.
Read More: How to keep pipes from freezing in a vacant house
How to Winterize a Mobile Home?
On the move, you need to keep your mobile home warm so that you feel comfortable inside of it during the winter season. Trust us on this, winterizing a mobile home is not a simple task as you are always on the move. Properly winterizing your mobile home will also save the money that you had to spend on heating measures.
To make things easier for you, you have constructed the following guideline to give your head a nod about what actions you should head for.
- Get yourself an insulation spray and use it to fill in every hole possible outside your home. Also, makes sure to fill in the spots where the water supply is located.
- To make sure that cold breezes don’t enter from the window, installing storm windows and shrink-wrap kit will assist you wonderfully.
- Your mobile home might have a metal roof, and sealing the seams sounds logical to keep the inside of the house warm.
- Regularly clean and replace the filter of your mobile home’s furnace.
How to Winterize a Tiny House?
RVs are quite accessible and affordable these days as a mean of residence, and almost anyone can have this setup. Depending on the size, winterizing one will also come in handy. Needless to say, you need to prepare your tiny house so that it can withstand extreme cold weather.
Whether your house is RV or just as tiny as an RV, winterizing one will seem effortless with the following simple steps.
- Getting loads of insulation will not only save up space but also will make the hearing process more efficient. For extreme winter conditions, spraying insulation and adding an extra layer will help to sustain hit.
- When spending lots of time on a wintery condition is a must, you should consider the window layout of your tiny home. Decide from where you will gain more sunlight and where there is a chance of breeze flowing in.
- Go for triple-pane windows for maximum air blockage.
- Prepare the roof of your house for snow and ice.
- You can also insulate the floor of your tiny house.
Read: How to winterize an RV?
Winterizing House Windows
As windows can act to provide airflow in and out of your house during warmer seasons, during the winter, it backfires as you fail to sustain warm air. At the same time, cold breezes enter through them. You need a contingency plan to prepare the windows of your house during winter.
First of all, consider getting a double pan window which has two sets of glass instead of one. Getting one will help to winterize your home better as they can sustain the warm air inside of your house and block cold breezes from entering into your home.
Next, consider adding insulation on the leaks of the window to block further the airflow both inside and out. A double pan window usually has added insulation to increase energy efficiency and keeping your house warmer.
Finally, look for any damage which might have been imposed on the window and went unnoticed. This will save you the trouble of fixing one during the winter season, and you can keep your house warm nonetheless.
How to Winterize a House Plumbing?
On extreme winter conditions, where there is a chance of your house plumbing getting frozen, you need to prepare your household plumbing. If household plumbing suffers the freezing condition, it might get damaged and even break, which will result in leakage and a lot of trouble for you.
Unless you are willing to seek professional help, you need to have enough knowledge to save your household plumbing from getting damaged during the winter seasons. Set your mind for winterizing and have a decent layout idea of your household’s plumbing.
Needless to say, shutting down the water supply to the entire house is necessary. This will ultimately drain every drop of water and leave your home out of moisture so that the cold condition doesn’t affect the plumbing. Having a compressor is a plus on this as it will help to blow out every bit of water out and reducing the chance of your plumbing suffering loss.
Read More
- How to prevent Frozen Pipes
- How to thaw frozen water pipes
- How to thaw frozen drain pipes
- How to keep pipes from freezing without heat
How Much Does It Cost to Winterize a House?
Throughout our discussion about winterizing a home, we have discussed a variety of houses, and the process also varied from one home to another. Depending on this, the cost of winterizing different home also requires a different level of financing.
Take vacant homes, for example; you need to consider winterizing them as if you don’t do so, you will suffer loss while you are away. Just like your outside home furniture will undergo damage as well as your household plumbing. So bearing the cost of winterizing your home sounds reasonable.
You have the option to seek professional help or execute the winterization on your own. If you are going to hire a professional, it might cost you about $200. If you are on a budget, doing it on your own can cost as less as $20.
However, winterizing an occupied home is an entirely different scenario as you will be living in it while the process takes place. If you want to do an energy audit to get a heads up of the inside of your house and figure out later what is needed to be done, it might cost between $300 to $500.
Checking whether the furnace is functional will cost you about $100 to $ 250 if you go for professional help or if you know where and what to look for, you can just do it by yourself.
Costing will vary depending on your home, the layout of your home and the appliances that you own. We suggest that you prioritize your spending while you consider winterizing.
When Should You Winterize Your Home?
If you are considering winterizing your home, you have to start the preparation earlier before the arrival of winter. If you are deciding to leave your house vacant, you might begin the process of winterization just a few days before you.
Winterizing your house while you live in it will require some time. First of all, have a mental image of the things that needed to be winterized, and depending on that, you should have a rough estimation. Such as cleaning up -the drainage, furnace, and roof will take time, whereas insulating leaks and checking up heater will require less time comparably.
Whether you are leaving your house for vacation or just worried about winter’s wrath, which might affect your home and cost you financially, winterizing is your best bet. Even though the process seems a bit complex and energy-draining, you will be thankful that you did it for the sake of the wellbeing of your house.
Now It’s Your Turn…
To make things easier for you and give you a sense of direction, we hope that this guide of ours will provide you with a sense of direction if you are trying to figure out how to winterize your home. Now you determine what process will you follow that better suits your home.
Read More
Leave a Reply