ESCANABA -- It can be very expensive to keep your home heated during the winter months. But many people are turning to their local hardware stores to find easy and affordable alternatives to keep their heating bill low.
One of the tools it takes to heat your house more affordably is a product you'll find in most homes. If you have a blow dryer, all you will need to buy then is plastic, which can be picked up at any hardware store.
“When I was a kid, my parents used to put plastic up on their windows,” says Jeremy Vandermissen. “It saved a lot of energy and a lot of heat from all the cracks. If you don't have triple pane windows, you end up losing a lot of heat that way."
Vandermissen says he saves up to $200 a year in heating bills through easy projects, which take less than ten minutes. It only costs about $40 to put up plastic around all the windows of a standard home. Better yet, once it's heat-shrunk with a blow dryer and the extra edges are cut off, the plastic is virtually invisible.
Caulking is another cheap fix to fill in those cracks that have formed around windows and doors. Door sweeps are another efficient way to keep cold air from coming through the bottoms of doors.
The heat-saving products found at T & T True Value Hardware range from $3 to $10.
“Plastic and a lot of the weather stripping are made out of rubber and foam,” says Kelly O’Connell, owner of T & T True Value Hardware. “So it's very reusable, but if you do have to replace it, it's very inexpensive."
Another inexpensive heating option is to use a portable heater in the bedroom.
But what about all those unused leftovers from this year's projects? Store them and use them to keep your home warmer next winter.
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