Keeping your domestic heating bills down in Winter

1. If you work from home: heat smart – heat locally

If you’re working from home in the winter, you’ll want to keep warm, but if you’re like many home-based workers, you’re probably alone in an empty house all day. It can be tempting to whack up the central heating, but that results in the whole house being heated more than it needs to be to keep you warm in one small part of it. It’s much wiser to warm up just the room of the house that you’re working in (or indeed just yourself!).

Electric heaters have traditionally been power-hungry, inefficient ways to heat a small area, with oil-filled radiators and fan heaters typically consuming over 2KW when running. As a result, these (especially the fan heaters) can be very costly to run, and you might end up paying more to heat just your small area than it would to heat the whole house.  Happily, there are a few ways you can warm yourself while you work without costing the Earth – in both senses …

Halogen heaters

Halogen electric heaters are fast, efficient heaters that convert a very high proportion of the electricity they use into warmth, and you can keep them close by while you’re working to heat just the space you’re in. They’re very inexpensive to buy, too, which makes them a good quick solution to take the edge off on cold days!

Examples of Halogen Heaters available in the UK:

https://warmlite-products.co.uk/wl42005-1200w-grey-halogen-heater.html
https://www.robertdyas.co.uk/status-white-hh-1200w1pkb-oscillating-halogen-heater

Infrared heaters

Infrared heat is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That makes it sound a bit dodgy, until you realise that you both absorb and emit infrared heat every day of your life! The heat of the sun and the warmth from your skin are both infrared. It’s the same heat source as is used in incubators for babies in hospital, so it’s safe to say it’s a natural way to warm yourself!

These are low-energy and highly efficient forms of direct heat, so they are ideal for use to warm up individual areas quickly and gently. Perfect for your needs to heat just yourself, they can be positioned under your desk to warm your legs while you work. They’re typically around ten times cheaper to run than oil-filled or heat fans, because it’s not heating the air around it but directing it towards you. The main downside of these heaters is that they are quite expensive to buy.

https://www.cartersdirect.co.uk/warmlite-wl42013.html
https://www.infraredheatersdirect.co.uk/herschel-select-under-desk-infrared-heating-panel-220w/

Hot water bottles

A traditional, lo-fi way to warm yourself as you work is the good old-fashioned hot water bottle. There are various sizes available now, but a woolly litre-sized version should give you a few hours of warmth from one boiled kettle.

Just be careful to use water that’s off the boil (not straight from a boiling kettle) and to carefully squeeze the air out as you fit the bung.

There’s a wide variety of hot water bottles available here:

https://www.thehotwaterbottleshop.com/

Electric blankets

Just like they used to use in the days before double-glazing and central heating was the norm, electric blankets are another way to directly warm yourself with a small amount of energy. These soft blankets with a gentle heating element come with a controller so you can adjust the amount of warmth they provide. They even come in other shapes, like one you can put both feet into!

A good place to find electric blankets from a reputable shop is Boots:

https://www.boots.com/electrical/electrical-health-diagnostics/electric-blankets

Warming footrest!

Finally, here’s a little gadget for the anyone who feels the cold – especially in their feet! A very low-powered heated footrest, it plugs into a USB socket and has simple controls to keep the level of warmth you need, and a timer to make sure you don’t leave it on when you don’t need it.

https://simplyvaliant.co.uk/collections/home/products/heated-footrest

Keep a level of background heat

It’s important to note that you need to keep at least a low level of warmth in your home to avoid problems like damp that can cause long term damage and health problems. If, like many at the moment, you are worried about your heating bills, keeping your thermostat at around 17ºC to 18ºC will maintain a background warmth that will avoid damp in your home but shouldn’t use too much energy. And of course, make sure you wear several layers to trap air and keep yourself warm when it’s particularly cold.

How do you keep yourself warm? Any tips we haven’t mentioned?

Let us know – and join us on Twitter and Facebook!