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How to Keep Small Spaces Warm

Keep Small Spaces Warm

Winter is upon us, and one of the biggest tasks is to stay warm during the coldest months.

If you live in an apartment, a trailer, or another small space, you might not have the luxury of central heating to keep you warm. Even if you have heat, it might be more cost-effective to try another solution before upping your electric or gas bill.

There are multiple ways to get a warm small apartment warm without central heating. You can use a mix of blankets, natural insulation, and space heaters. There are also personal ways to keep warm without paying a fortune to the electric company!

Why it is Essential to Stay Warm During Winter

woman enjoying winter season

Staying warm in the winter is more than just comfort. Your body needs warmth to stay healthy, fight off infections, and even stay alive. Preserving energy and saving money on the gas bill can be essential, but it doesn’t have to come at the cost of your health!

9 Ways to Keep Small Spaces Warm

If your goal is to save money, energy, and warmth, look at each of these ways of doing that and decide what works best for you and your space. Different living situations and budgets will require various solutions.

Whatever you decide, what’s most important is that you stay safe and warm throughout the winter months!

Heaters

heating system

If your house has expensive central heating or doesn’t have central heating at all, your first step should be to look into some individual heaters. Depending on your space, these can be large or small and will help you to heat your space more efficiently.

Many types of heaters plug into the wall and are portable. You’ll be able to store them in summer and only use them in the winter. Alternatively, you can use individual air conditioning units that have heaters. These will stay in your rooms all year and function as both heaters and air conditioners.

Either way, small heaters are the most efficient way to heat a small space, whether it’s a room in your house or a studio apartment. After the initial expense, they only cost a bit of electricity and produce enough heat to keep your space warm.

For a small space or just one bedroom, central heating can waste a lot of energy warming up the entire house. On the other hand, an individual heater can focus the heat into a single room and save both energy and heat.

Note: personal heaters, whether ceramic, metal, or in-wall units, are a fire hazard if cared for improperly. It is always important to follow the instructions on the packaging and keep flammable items away from the heater.

Air Conditioning and Heating Units

The most common and versatile type of individual heater would be a regular window or wall air conditioning unit. In the summer, it can cool down your bedroom or apartment without straining the central air too much. You can switch it to heat during the colder months and keep your bedroom warm and toasty.

Air conditioning units are one of the more expensive routes for personal heat and cooling, but they have the benefit of doing both. Once you make the initial investment, you won’t have to worry about being too hot in summer or too cold in winter.

The PTAC air conditioning unit is a great example of how these work for small spaces.

Space Heaters

using Space Heater

Space heaters are generally made of a heating element and metal bars. The heat is formed by electricity and conveyed through the metal to heat the air around it in a process called radiant heating. These heaters don’t provide heat to a large area but do well in a small, enclosed space with insulation.

This type of heater is popular in homes where one bedroom stays colder than the other, or one person needs more heat in their room. Space heaters are also great for outside spaces such as sheltered patios and garages.

Ceramic Heaters

Ceramic heaters are a little different from space heaters in that they are not composed of metal bars that heat the air around them up. Instead, the electricity heats a ceramic plate, which radiates heat to the rest of the room. A fan generally blows the heat throughout the area.

Ceramic heaters come in various sizes, making them extremely versatile. They are also more powerful than many space heaters and can fully heat a small space without using a ton of electricity. These heaters are ideal for small spaces such as trailers or RVs, where electricity and space are both limited.

Heated Fans

Heated Fan

Heated fans are a relatively new phenomenon that uses the same technology as ceramic or space heaters. However, the emphasis is on the fan instead of the heater. The heating element is often paired with a cooling element (or a regular fan setting), so the fan can be used year-round.

These fans aren’t commonly used but do a very effective job of raising the temperature in a small area or closed bedroom. When the weather is cold, a heated fan will keep a small area warm the whole night long and use very little electricity compared to an in-wall unit or central heating.

Insulation

Of course, there are other ways to keep a smaller area warm than adding heaters. While heaters are the most convenient and effective way, they won’t work if the room is losing heat through other areas.

Houses with central heating often lose a lot of extra heat through the lack of insulation, and bedrooms or small apartments are no exception to this.

Draft Stoppers

Draft Stopper

If your house or apartment building was built well, it will have proper insulation in the walls, floors, and ceilings.

However, even the best builder can’t account for all of the drafts that might occur within a room. If your room is cold, even with a heater, you might want to look for drafts and stop them.

The most common places to look for drafts are wherever there are openings: windows, doors, and outlets often have small drafts near them. On especially cold nights, use draft stoppers – whether homemade or store-bought–to stop cold air from entering through these cracks.

If it’s an outside door or window, a draft could damage your house. Wet and cold weather could lead to mold damage. Patch up these cracks thoroughly with caulk. If you aren’t sure you completely fixed the problem, call a contractor to ensure that your house is safe and secure.

Drafts around inside doors can be stopped with a towel or blanket underneath. You could use insulation tape along the sides of the door if cold air is leaking in through the sides or top. Either way, you should see a considerable improvement in retained heat once you deal with drafts.

Personal Heating Supplies

The final way to keep a small space warm is to solely focus on keeping yourself warm in the small space. Once you’ve stopped all the drafts and plugged in your extra heater, the only way to avoid the cold is to make sure that you are nice and cozy. Get a survival kit of warmth supplies to make it through the winter.

Hot Water Bottles or Pads

Person with cold feet in bed on a red hot water bottle

If you want to stay warm throughout the night but hate wearing socks, purchase a hot water bottle. Although these don’t look like water bottles, they’ve been around for several hundred years and are proven to keep you warm for hours. Alternatively, you could buy a heating pad (although there is a time limit on how long most heating pads remain on).

Heated Blankets

Of course, you’re not going to get very far if you try to stay warm without blankets. Blankets were created to trap our body heat and make us into tiny heaters, and they are invaluable in the winter. However, the quality of the blanket does matter. Fleece will hold heat much better than linen or cotton.

The ultimate blanket for heat in winter is an electric blanket. These blankets have wires throughout them that heat up when they are plugged in. Think of it as a giant heating pad–it doesn’t use a ton of electricity and can make a significant difference on a cold night.

Layered Clothes

couple feet relaxing on bed having good sleep time together

Of course, there’s something to be said for layering warm clothes and snuggling in to stay warm. It’s perfectly fine to put two or more pairs of socks underneath your pajamas at night. Your body heat is a free resource–use it as much as you can! Creating a small heater of yourself (or your loved ones or pets) is a great way of staying warm.

Hot Drinks

There’s a reason we all crave hot coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate when it’s cold out–our body wants to stay warm no matter what! Having a hot drink before bed will keep you warm throughout the night and help you sleep (provided there’s little to no caffeine in your hot drink of choice).

Final Thoughts

If you are trying to avoid central heat (or simply don’t have it), there are ways to stay warm this winter that don’t involve breaking the bank!

Even if you can’t get an in-wall air and heating unit, you can find an affordable option on this list. Purchase a small heater or heated blanket, drink hot tea, and snuggle in for a warm winter.

Article Submitted By Community Writer

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