If you feel a draft while you’re curled up on the sofa with a good book or your favorite TV show, don’t crank up the thermostat. Move the sofa.
The chilliest places in your home during the winter are right next to the windows. So, move your furniture away from the windows.
Here are six other ways to stay warm by rearranging the furniture when it gets cold outside:
- Locate your bookcases against an outside wall, and fill them with as many books as you can. The wood, paper and cardboard will absorb some of the cold air that seeps through the walls so it won’t make it into your heated room.
- Similarly, hanging your favorite quilt or tapestry on an exterior wall will help keep heat indoors and the cold from seeping into the room.
- Find the air-supply and -return registers in every room. Sometimes they are on walls, and sometimes they are in the floor. Move furniture and carpet away from floor registers and scoot bookshelves far from wall grids so your furnace gets the airflow it needs to operate efficiently. And if you’ve covered an ugly wall register with a poster or painting, it’s got to go. That register needs to “breathe” in order for your heating and cooling systems to work properly.
- Likewise, clear sofas, chairs, beds and carpets away from heating vents. Fabric-covered furniture will not only block the stream of warm air from reaching the rest of the room, it actually can absorb the heat.
- Your computer, TV and lamps generate some heat while they’re turned on, so take advantage of it. Move those electric appliances away from exterior walls so the warm air the devices generate won’t exit through the walls. Also, move those pieces away from your thermostat. The extra heat can trick the thermostat into cycling the furnace off, even though the rest of the house feels cold.
- When it’s sunny outside, open the blinds and drapes so the outdoor warmth can flood your room. But on cloudy days and after dark, keep windows covered. The fabric will help keep your heated air indoors.
