9 Strategies to Stay Cozy Warm Without Running up Your Heating Bill

Do you live in a cold climate? Do trees shade your house so that it’s cold even during the summer heat? If you’re constantly running your central heat to keep warm throughout the year, you’re only making the electric company rich.
The good news is you don’t need to rely on central heat to stay warm all the time. You don’t have to stop using your central heat, and you don’t need to buy expensive new gadgets to create a smart home . All you need are these 9 strategies to reduce your electric bill and stay warm at the same time.
1. Seal up baseboard gaps and/or missing baseboards
Drafts are a major source of cold air that will keep your central heat running nonstop. When you have cold air constantly flowing through your home, your heating system will never reach the temperature set on the thermostat. That means your system will run indefinitely until you turn it off or set the temperature lower than you prefer.
Sealing up gaps and missing baseboards prevents cold air from flowing freely into your home and saves you money on your electric bill at the same time.
If you don’t mind the way it looks, get some of that expanding foam material that comes in a can and spray it in the cracks from the outside of your house. This is the easiest and cheapest way to seal small baseboard gaps.
Otherwise, fix your baseboards properly and/or install baseboards if yours are missing.
2. Use infrared space heaters
Unless you live in a futuristic smart city where all appliances run on solar power, you need a standard source of heat. If you don’t have central heat, you need something portable like a space heater.
Space heaters have a reputation for being energy hogs, but that’s not always true. There are two factors that determine how a space heater’s efficiency:

The power required to run the space heater
The method of heat conversion

Infrared heat is an extremely efficient source of heat because infrared heat is absorbed deep within your skin. Infrared heat sticks to your clothes, too, which keeps you warm for a longer period of time. In contrast, heat created through convection only heats the air around the unit. The problem with convection heat is that the hot air rises and moves away from you. You’ll only stay warm when you’re huddled up close to the heater.
There are many different ways space heaters create hot air, including:

Standard convection heating
Infrared heat
Ventless gas heaters (usually wall-mounted)
Blue flames

Which space heater is right for you? That depends on your living space, your budget, and your preferences for aesthetics. To learn more about how various space heaters work, check out eFireplace Store’s thorough guide to space heaters for a detailed explanation. The guide includes everything from how the hot air is created to how the actual units function.
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