Natural Ways to Heat Your Home

Natural Ways to Heat Your HomeEveryone will wish for their homes to be a little bit warmer especially during winters. The temperature outside your house could be freezing and yet, you can still feel the coldness outside because of the lack of heat inside your home. You may want to adjust your thermostat or consider lighting your fireplace just to get more warmth, but these things will never be enough. There are still a lot of things to do if you want to heat your home a little bit more.

Adjust your ceiling fans to turn clockwise.

You may not know this yet, but ceiling fans can be set to rotate on a different direction depending on the season. Since, you are looking for more warmth during the winter seasons, change the rotate of your ceiling fans on the clockwise direction so that you can get more warm air.

Keep your doors closed.

Keeping the doors closed in your house will help in containing the heat inside.

Add some layers to your floor.

Area rugs are practically invented for one reason, and that is to make your floors feel cozy and warm. By adding some layers to your floor like area rugs as a form of insulation, you can definitely feel warmth in your toes. Adding insulation to your floors will make the floor itself a little bit warmer which is really good especially during winters.

Turn off your bathroom fan.

And the one in your kitchen, for that matter! Exhaust fans in these rooms pull hot air that rises to the ceiling out of your home. If you must use them, turn them on sparingly and be sure to shut them off when you’re done.

Use foils.

If you have radiators in your home, you can try putting a tin foil behind them so that the warm air can be reflected back in your room instead of letting it escape through the walls. This will contribute a lot to making your house a little warmer especially during the winter season.

Make yourself feel warm in every way you think that’s possible.

If your house still feels cold, why not try wearing a sweater and cozy socks so you can make yourself warm. If you feel cold, then it’s the perfect time to drink hot coffee, cocoa, or milk.

You really don’t have to do much when it comes to making your house to feel a little bit warmer like installing various heating systems and such. There are natural ways to heat your home so you make yourself feel warm especially in a very cold night.

The Benefits of Owning a Fireplace

The Benefits of Owning a FireplacePerhaps the first thing that comes into most people minds when you talk about fireplaces is that it gives heat. Well, you definitely can’t argue with that since they always excel in providing extra heat, especially during winter seasons. They are also not usable only for the winter seasons. Because all year round, they have been the center of seasonal decorations and serves as an importance piece of attraction for family photos. They are known to provide vitality to your home from the inside and out. But, there’s more to them than you usually know.

Here are some of the most important benefits of having a fireplace in your house.

Convenient to use.

Having a gas fireplace in your house is so convenient. You don’t need to get wood and try hard to make a fire because with just one simple flip of a switch you can easily light a fire. You can then enjoy the warmth the gas fireplace gives to your house without having to worry about smoke or smell.

Improves the ambiance in your house.

Having a fireplace inside your house can help you relax and enjoy the comfort of the warmth of the heat that it provides. Having a fireplace in the center of your living room is like having a candlelight for a romantic dinner. It sets up a relaxing mood to everyone as it improves the ambiance in your living room which is why most people often flock in front of them.

Improved interior design.

Your home will definitely look better once a fireplace is installed especially in the living room. It will grab the attention of anyone who visits your house.

Improved home value.

Adding a fireplace to your home will also increase its value. In fact, most people who are looking to buy a new house always look for a house with a fireplace already installed. You can easily get a buyer for your house if you already have at least one fireplace installed.

With that being said, fireplaces are an important part of a house. They provide many benefits that you and your family can definitely enjoy. There are actually a lot of different types of fireplaces available right now. But gas fireplaces are so far the most appropriate and most convenient of them all. With a gas fireplace in your house, you won’t have to worry about gathering, stacking, and cutting down wood just to light a fire.

Even though they are a wonderful addition to your house they are still considered to be fire hazards. You have to check your fireplace especially its chimney as often as you can as a safety measure. You can also hire a professional at least once a year to check the chimney for you.

Humidity and your Wooden Furniture

Humidity and your Wooden FurnitureThe relative humidity in your house can drop by 13% once you start using your heating systems during the winter season. This makes the air inside your house to be dry. Its effects may not be felt immediately by the people living in the house but its effects can be seen immediately on some of your things. Your wooden furniture is the ones that are affected the most by low indoor relative humidity. Low indoor humidity can suck all the moisture causing the wooden furniture to receive permanent damage which causes them to crack and split.

The dry air that resulted from low indoor humidity will suck moisture from its surroundings and the most likely to be affected are your wooden furniture. To avoid this from happening, you need to be sure that the indoor humidity must stay around its right level which is around 35%. If the indoor humidity stays at the right level, the moisture in your wooden furniture will also remain constant.

Here’s some of what low indoor humidity can cause to your wooden furniture:

  • Your wooden furniture, walls, doors and windows will crack or split.
  • Your wooden doors will have gaps and will also no longer fit tightly.Your hardwood floors will also have gaps in them. Gaps between the boards in hardwood floors.
  • Your hardwood floors will also have gaps in them.
  • Your wooden chairs will become wobbly.

There are two factors which can help you identify how dry air rapidly affects your wooden things inside your house. You can determine it by taking a look at the pore size and the surface hardness. For example, hard wood will not lose its moisture as fast as the softer woods. A furniture will not also lose its moisture immediately if it is applied with a sealer and lacquer.

But it is still possible to save your wooden furniture from the effects of dry air by rubbing them with a quality furniture oil as protection. However, once the wooden furniture has already suffered from a crack, there’s not much that you can do for it.

The only thing left for you to do is to make sure that the indoor humidity can be restored to its right level right away. You can install a humidifier in your house especially the type that can automatically adjust the humidity level. You can also try limiting the number of times you are using your home’s heating system if you don’t want the indoor humidity level to plummet.

You should learn how to protect your wooden furniture too from certain factors especially low indoor humidity. Once you know that winter is coming, you need to make some precautionary measures to help protect the safety of the wooden things inside your house. By doing so, you’ll be able to make use of them a lot longer!

 

Houston Weather in November

houston-weather-in-novemberWhile the temperature in Houston tends to be warm, we can expect to be kept cool with a bit of rain and probably some cold fronts that will be passing through the area. There is an increased risk of hurricanes in Houston this month since it is hurricane season but that doesn’t mean that we are guaranteed to have one. With that rain could come floods too, as there is an increased risk of flooding as well. So whatever this month has in store for us we should at least expect to get a little wet.

Here are the averages for Houston:

Low / High for the Month

54°F / 72°F

Chance of Sunny / Cloudy / Windy

54% / 22% / 32%

Average Rainfall

115mm

Average Rainfall days

8 days

New Fireplace Features To Look For

New Fireplace Features To Look ForFireplaces have a very long history. Their existence dates back from the prehistoric times. They were once used for heating a dwelling place, for heating water and for other domestic uses. But as time goes by, the use of a fireplace have become more modern. Modern fireplaces are now mainly used for creating a relaxing ambiance and for heating a room. New fireplace features like better heat efficiency are introduced in the new models. But there are also other important new fireplace features that you need to look for when you are purchasing one. It’s important that you need to understand these features, know how they work and how they can be beneficial to you.

Fireplace Fans

This is an important feature that you must look for in a modern fireplace. The purpose of having a fan inside a fireplace is not to produce more heat but to ensure that the heat being produced will reach the area where it’s needed. To be clear, putting a fan inside a fireplace doesn’t cause it to produce more heat, but it can help to ensure that more of the heat being produced actually reaches the space where it’s desired.  Fireplaces are usually installed in recessed alcoves with one of it sides exposed to the outside air. Installing a fireplace this way not only helps in reducing fire risk but it also allows the heat produced from the fireplace to reach interior areas in the house.

Fireplace fans and blowers will draw air from vents in the underside of the insert and then push that air out from the top, making sure that the heat is distributed evenly. Having fans in your fireplace will also improve the quality and circulation of the air inside a room.

Catalytic Converter

Fireplaces must also have a catalytic converter inside them. A catalytic converter is essential for reducing the amount of smoke coming out from your chimney. This also increases the heat being produced while reducing the amount of wood being burned in the process. However, not all fireplaces come with this important feature. With a catalytic converter you can use less wood while still getting a lot of heat which in turn helps you in saving money from buying too much wood as a fuel source for your fireplace.

These are only two of the most important new fireplace features that you need to look out for. These two are even more important if you are using your fireplace as your primary heat source. But if you have a reliable source of cheap firewood, then having one of these two features can still help you in saving money.