Saving Money On Energy Usage Pt. 4 — Free Heat

You can save a ton of money during the winter by not using your central heating to heat your home.  There is this wonderful thing called the Sun and it heats the entire planet.  With a little bit of thought you can also use it to heat your home.

The easiest way it to open up the blinds or curtains on the sunny side of your home.  As soon as the sun goes down make sure to close them.  In fact, having curtains closed on the shaded parts of your home and during then night can work as an extra layer of insulation from the cold.

Now you can stop at opening your blinds and curtains during the day or you can take it to a whole 'notha level.  We are going to turn the windows that are on the sunny side of the house into our own personal space heater.   Here is what you will need:

• 2 rods (curtain, dow, the lighter the better) that are the width of your windows
• Black sheets of plastic like what you would find under a house
• A stapler with staples in it

You can find all these items at Wal-Mart.

Next we are going to cut the black plastic to be slightly larger than the height of the window.  Once you have your plastic sheets wrap the each end around the dow or curtain rod and staple it so that it holds around the rod.

Finally we want to secure each rod to the window frame.  The most effective way is to nail it into the side of the window frame or, if you are using  actual curtain rods, to use the brackets that come with the curtain rods.  We want to make sure there is a gap of at least six inches between the window frame and the black plastic.  This will create enough space for the heated air to escape out the top.   So when we are done the setup should look and work something like this:

In my area of the country (southeast) you should be able to get heat in the upper 80's in more northern location your temperature out the top should be somewhere around 80 degrees.  So give it a try and enjoy a little free heat during the day.