WHO KNEW There Are Many Ways to Improve Your Home’s Heating Efficiency?

Our house is old - and it tends to be drafty. In normal winters (colder than this one has been so far) it has been a challenge to keep it warm. Sowe enrolled in the Sustainable Hanover “WindowDressers” project that custombuilds window inserts to act as weather-proofing seals. We started with the upstairs in 2023, and the inserts were so effective that we did the downstairs windows in 2024. The next round of Community Build days for our area will be announced later this year.

But back to today.: There are many other things we can do to stay warmer, and use less heating oil in the process. In a book called “1001 Little Ways to Save Our Planet,” British author Esme Floyd suggests many things you can do to stay warm. Our C3 “Who Knew?” columns will post several of them from time to time.

Here are some suggestions involving cozy fabrics:

1. Put door draft stoppers on the floor at the base of exterior doors. Sometimes called “draft dodgers” or “door snakes,” these stuffed tubes of fabric should be as long as your door is wide. When they’re placed along the bottom of a door they can keep much of the cold air out

2. Fabric also can help with your windows: keeping your east-facing curtains open during morning hours and closing them at dusk may give the room a bit more warmth and save some heating expense.

3. And of course, a cozy sweater is always an option.