17 Ways To Keep Your Home Cosy This Winter

Winter is coming. Here are some easy, inexpensive ways to keep out the cold.

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1. Make a draught excluder to block the gap under your door.

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There are seemingly endless ways on Pinterest to make a DIY draught stopper for doors and windows. You can create almost anything, from an adorable doggie doorstopper to a no-nonsense foam tube.

2. Your home also loses heat through the floor – so cover it up with a rug.

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And preferably also a large cat.

3. Let in the low winter light.

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Make sure the curtains on the south and west sides of your house are kept open during the day to take advantage of the low winter sun – but pull them shut once the sun's down to keep that heat in!

4. Stop heat loss through windows with DIY bubblewrap insulation.

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You can use bubblewrap to effectively insulate your windows. Just spray water across the window and stick the wrap bubble side down across the glass, cut to whatever shape you need. If you have judgmental guests coming over, you can peel it off and reapply it easily once they've gone.

No matter what you do to your windows, it's important to note that contrary to popular opinion, windows are only responsible for about 10% of your house's heat loss. Thirty-five per cent goes out of the walls, and 25% through the roof – so see that your walls and roof are properly insulated first and foremost.

5. Or, if you've popped all your bubblewrap, use simple plastic sheeting and a hairdryer.

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This heavily pregnant Australian woman will show you how.

6. Once you're properly insulated, turn your thermostat down to save money.

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Turning it down one degree can save you £60 a year.

7. Make use of leftover oven heat – but only once it's off.

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If you're cooking with your oven, leave it open after you've finished so that the heat dissipates into your house rather than going to waste.

But seriously, make sure it's off, and please don't burn yourself or die of carbon monoxide poisoning. It's just something you might as well do if you've already heated up your oven anyway.

8. Block draughts from ceiling vents with sticky plastic.

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This same amazing Australian woman will show you how.

9. Use draught-sealing tape on internal doors.

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Seriously, someone give this lady a DIY show.

10. Find draughts around your windows, vents, and door frames.

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Hunt down draughts in your house by slowly moving a lit stick of incense or a candle around the edges of your windows. When the smoke or flame flickers, you've found your leak.

11. Insulate your electrical outlets.

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They may be small, but across your house they add up to plenty of lost heat. Small foam cutouts can help reduce the loss.

12. Put your ceiling fan on reverse.

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Your fan might have a setting to reverse its direction, sucking cold air upwards and pushing warm air that has risen to the ceiling back down to where it's needed.

13. Don't drain your bath or shower water until it's cooled down.

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That way, the heat will warm up your bathroom rather than your pipes. This is only worth it if you were going to use up that hot water anyway – it would be expensive, inefficient, and a waste of water to run a hot bath just for the sole purpose of heating your house a bit.

Also, if you have a problem with mildew in your bathroom, you'll want to avoid the extra humidity this tactic would create. But if you're after humidity, this will help! Plus: Higher humidity will hold heat in the air for longer.

14. Make a DIY radiant heater from terracotta flowerpots and tealights.

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There are plenty of different tutorials online with slightly varying methods, but the basic idea is that a couple of flowerpots over a couple of tealights can heat up a whole room for almost nothing.

As with any candles, don't leave your heater unattended, and be careful not to burn yourself – you wouldn't touch a space heater, would you?

15. Just say no to portable, gas, electric, space, and fan heaters.

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Yes, they'll warm you up quickly, but they're horribly inefficient and may send your energy bill through the roof. Compare the cost of different kinds of room heaters here. Depending on the size of your house, it could well be cheaper and more efficient to turn on the central heating on at a low heat than to hunker down in a single room with an electric heater.

16. Line the back of your fireplace with aluminum foil or a fireback.

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Placing aluminum foil at the back of your fireplace will help heat radiate out rather than up through the chimney. To do this, you'll need a deep enough fireplace to be able to set the foil far enough behind the fire so as not to be charred.

17. And of course, don't forget the warming power of a big woolly jumper!

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Just ask this sheep.