Winter is a cold, frigid beast. But luckily, modern appliances like gas furnaces, radiators, thermostat-controlled fireplaces, and ceiling fans can help you take your home from chilly to toasty.

But did you know that there are other ways you can keep your home warm?

Relying solely on your furnace or fireplace in the winter can lead to rising energy bills. However, unconventional tricks like hanging the right type of curtains or doing some strategic feng shui can help keep your home warm, taking the pressure off of your home’s traditional heating appliances. Learn more about these methods and how to use them down below.

1. Install Thicker Curtains

Curtains aren’t always thought of as heating devices. They’re designed to keep the sun, the earth’s primary heating source, out of your home. But as it turns out, curtains can also keep the heat in.

And the thicker the curtain, the more effective they are at insulating and keeping the warmth indoors. All you have to do is close the curtains once the sun goes down in the evening and open them back up once the sun rises again the next day. Don’t want to spend money on new curtains? Hanging up an old rug or blanket in front of your windows will have the same effect.

2. Keep a Tight Thermostat Schedule

If you want to keep your home warm, you need to keep the furnace on at full-blast all day, right? Wrong. It’s more efficient and effective to heat your home on a schedule. In fact, a programmable thermostat has been known to save up to 10% each year on home heating costs.

What does this schedule look like? When you leave for work in the day, set your programmable or wifi thermostat down a few degrees. This will allow your furnace to take a much-needed break. Then, set your thermostat back to your ideal temperature about an hour before you expect to come home. When you walk in the door, the furnace will be running hot, letting you feel the heat immediately.

Pro Tip: This heating trick only works if you set your thermostat to kick into gear before you get home. That way, you’re not forcing your furnace to climb several degrees rapidly once you arrive.

3. Move Your Furniture

If you’re looking to feel more heat in your home, your furniture placement could be hindering your efforts. Furniture, especially couches, chairs, beds, and other heavy and bulky items could be blocking and absorbing a lot of your home’s heating output. To correct this, just make sure that none of your furniture is impeding a vent, heat register, radiator, or other sources of heat in your home.

4. Decorate With Warm Blankets

A surefire way to stay warm in the winter is to bundle up. With plenty of layers on, you can stay comfortable in even the coldest of temps. To make it easy to bundle up at home, decorate your home with warm throw blankets.

We spend a lot of time inside in the winter, cuddling up on the couch to enjoy a movie, watch tv, or read a book. But as we sit and relax, our circulation slows causing our bodies to cool down. Blankets are a great way to help remedy that. So, if you start to catch a chill, a blanket is never far out of reach.

5. Cook and Bake Often

Before formal furnaces were invented, homeowners would use their stoves to heat their homes. To give you furnace some assistance in the winter, take advantage of the heat your stovetop and oven can provide. Bake cookies. Cook up some omelets. Broil some chicken breasts. The more you use your oven and stove, the more heat you will be releasing into your home’s atmosphere.

Going From Chilly to Toasty

Keeping your home warm in the wintertime is no easy task. So, don’t put 100% of the burden on your home’s furnace. Instead, give it some help with the five unconventional heating methods above. Between shutting the curtains and moving your furniture, you can increase your home’s temp without requiring overtime from your furnace.

With all of that being said, the best way to keep your home warm consistently through the harshest winter months is still your home’s furnace. Make sure your furnace is running in tip-top shape by scheduling your annual furnace maintenance visit for just $99! Give us a call at 612-825-6867 or contact us now to get on our schedule.