It's getting chilly in the Northern Hemisphere because winter is coming. Prepare your house, your car, and yourself this weekend so you're comfortable despite the cold.
Winterize Your Home
Winterizing your home means, for the most part, keeping cold air out. The obvious ways to do that are locking down your windows and shoving stuff underneath your doors (like draft dodgers). If you can, get a programmable thermostat and actually program it well. This will help you save energy and stay warm during the most important times.
If you live in an apartment, however, you may not have as many options as you'd like because a lot of steps towards winterizing are permanent. This Metafilter thread, however, has plenty of suggestions for apartment dwellers. Here are a few notable ones:
- Uncovering the windows during the day to allow passive heating, then covering them at night for extra insulation.
- Use insulated curtains with thick lining to minimize heat loss.
- Arrange your furniture so that bookshelves, dressers, and other thick pieces are on the outside walls. This helps with insulation.
- Run ceiling fans clockwise to trap heat in your house.
- Hang quilts for extra insulation.
- "Walk around with a stick of incense to identify the worst air leaks - the smoke will let you know. I once made window coverings out of layers of flattened cardboard boxes, which I used at night, rather like shutters. Cardboard is often free, and insulates well, but is not firesafe. Thrift shops often have wool blankets cheap, which are excellent wall coverings. Cover the thin door with a blanket, too. Stop and think seriously about how all of your choices affect fire safety - make sure doors and windows are still marked, and still accessible and don't neglect the smoke alarm."
- Get an electric blanket for those especially cold nights.
For more, eHow offers a pretty good checklist to help you get ready.
Winterize Your Car
All sorts of awful things can happen to your car in the winter, so you want to keep an eye on things and keep it in the best shape possible to avoid unfortunate problems. The Art of Manliness offers several car winterizing tips, most of which involve regularly checking things like your tire pressure, battery, anti-freeze mixture, and belts and hoses. Basically, make sure your car is in good shape before you head into the coldest time of the year. Additionally, make sure you have plenty of emergency supplies in your trunk in case things go awry. Follow our winter car emergency kit guide for some suggestions. You may also want to prepare a 72-hour survival kit as well if you're headed somewhere you could end up stranded for a few days. If you're prudent and prepare, that shouldn't happen. Nonetheless, it's always good to be ready just in case.
Winterize Yourself
Winterizing yourself is important, too, because ultimately the goal of doing the same to your home and car is to keep your body from freezing. Obviously you need to bundle up when you're outside, but getting your body ready for cold temperatures involves a lot more than that. You have to keep your physical self intact by eating healthy, taking your vitamins, and remembering to go out in the sun a little bit. It's harder to get sunlight in the winter since 1) it's unpleasant to go outside and 2) there's less of it, so make sure you set aside some time. Additionally, make sure you don't go crazy. Don't hole yourself up in your house. Get out and do things. Getting stuck inside during the winter can't lead to anything good (e.g. The Shining). These are just the basics. For more, read our complete guide to winterizing your body.
Photos by Michael McCullough, Andrew Vargas, and Joynergy.
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