How to stay warm in a cold apartment: 14 life hacks from Europeans

Do you know why every September you are forced to freeze in your own apartment, waiting like manna from heaven for the central heating to turn on? The fact is that in Russia there are standards according to which heating can be started only after the average daily temperature for five days in a row does not exceed 8 degrees above zero.

In theory, during this time, apartment buildings should not yet have time to cool down to a critical temperature. By the way, it is 18 degrees above zero. The thermometer may drop lower - but no more than three degrees. Only when the temperature in your apartment drops below 15 degrees can utility workers have problems. For you, they can begin even earlier - many can get sick even at a temperature of 20 degrees, not to mention in a colder room.

Most often, tips for heating a room are relevant for the night, when the temperature in the apartment drops to the minimum values ​​for the day, and we cannot actively spend time in order to warm up in this way. However, freezing in your own apartment at night because the central heating radiators are turned off is completely unnecessary. AiF.ru knows at least five ways to raise the temperature in the apartment so as not to contract the disease while waiting for the start of the heating season.

Hang blackout curtains: open them in the morning and close them at dusk

With the onset of winter, thin curtains on the windows should be replaced with thick curtains and closed as soon as it starts to get dark outside. Thick curtains will act as a thermal insulator and protect the house from cold air currents. This is especially true if the windows are ventilated (unfortunately, not only old wooden windows, but also some modern plastic ones are guilty of this).

During the day, the curtains need to be opened, and the wider the better. Sunlight and warmth will enter the room through the window. It is clear that the temperature will increase by a maximum of 1–2 degrees, but it will still be much more comfortable to be indoors at lunchtime.

Stylish thick curtains in dark gray or chocolate color from the Mebelion home goods store will help keep your apartment warm and create coziness.

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Precautions and what not to do

Many people write about quickly heating a room, but not all methods are safe. The table contains “bad advice” on how NOT to heat a room without a heater and why it is better not to listen to them:

Thanks to the tips described above, you will become warmer and more comfortable even when it’s cold outside and the batteries don’t work for some reason. Keep warm and don't be grateful!

Educational program: How to install a mobile air conditioner, avoiding 6 common mistakes

Buy an electric blanket or sheet

Go to a cold bed? It's unpleasant to even think about. Sometimes you cover yourself with three blankets, but still can’t get warm and sleep. To fall asleep only in a warm bed, use an electric sheet or blanket. They are equipped with special heating elements and have several temperature settings. Turn on the sheets 15-20 minutes before going to bed and go about your business. When you return, the bed is already dry and warm.

Electric sheets are completely safe, because they are equipped with an automatic shut-off system, and you choose the time yourself (usually the sheet needs to be turned off after three to seven hours of operation).

The power of the sheet is 40–100 watts, but a lot depends on the model and size of the device. And, by the way, the electric sheet can be washed (the cable with which the sheet is heated is removable).

Types of heaters

A home craftsman who wants to acquire a homemade “hot water bottle” can choose from several options:

The main element of the heating element is a spiral made of nichrome or other material with high electrical resistance, which begins to heat up when an electric current is passed through it. The spiral is placed in a copper tube filled with sand.

The oil removes heat from the heating element, distributes it over the surface of the body and, in addition, serves as a heat accumulator (after a power outage, the device continues to heat the surrounding air for some time).

Steam-drip

In its design, a vapor-drip heater is very similar to an oil heater, only water vapor is used as a medium that distributes heat. It is formed from a small amount of water, which is poured into the body.

This solution provides two significant advantages:

1. When freezing, the vapor-drip heater will not burst, since water occupies only a small part of its volume.
2. Steam is an extremely capacious heat accumulator. More precisely, not so much steam as the evaporation process: it is during the transition from liquid to gaseous state that water accumulates a large amount of thermal energy, which is returned when steam condenses on the walls of the heater.

Having transferred heat to the body of the device, the condensed steam in the form of water flows to the lower part, where the heating element is installed. The power of the heating element and the volume of water are selected in such a way that rupture of the heater by steam pressure is excluded.

Due to the fact that the device body is hermetically sealed, its internal walls do not rust due to high humidity.

Only it usually evaporates to the ceiling in the form of convective air currents and is “smeared” over the entire area of ​​the room.

Why not place a heat trap above the candle? We will tell you what it is in the next section.

Infrared (IR)

Any substance with a temperature different from absolute zero emits “thermal” electromagnetic waves, which are called infrared.

The intensity of this radiation is directly dependent on the temperature of the substance. Water and oil radiators also emit IR waves, but in very small quantities because their surface is relatively cold.

To turn a metal object into an IR emitter, it is enough to heat it to a red glow temperature. If you use special materials, for example, graphite, then quite noticeable “heat” waves can be achieved at relatively low temperatures.

Knowledge of these subtleties will help us make our own IR heater, which will give us heat directly, that is, without the participation of air as an intermediary.

Other types

Since electricity is not available everywhere, structures running on gas or solid fuel have the right to life. The latter include potbelly stoves.

Move

Movement is life. And warm. And to stay warm, you need to move! Physical activity increases your heart rate, improves blood circulation and stimulates an increase in body temperature. Do a little exercise: squat, pump your abs, bend from side to side. Finally, clean out your kitchen or bathroom.

This way you will not only warm up quickly, but also get a great figure and a clean apartment. Isn't this wonderful?

Heating without fuel

Modern scientists have invented a way to heat a house even without burning any fuel resources - the so-called “heating without fuel”. This is achieved through the operation of a unique device – a heat pump.

Design and operation

The heat pump consists of tubes filled with freon, as well as several chambers - throttle, compressor, heat exchange. The operation of the device is similar to that of a refrigerator. It is called by scientists after its inventor the “Carnot cycle,” which is based on simple laws of physics:

• Liquid freon passes through tubes lowered deep into the ground or reservoir, where the temperature even in winter remains up to +8 0 C. There it becomes a gas, since its boiling point is only +3 0 C.
• Rising upward again, the freon gas enters the compressor chamber, where it is strongly compressed, which is quite easy to do with a gaseous substance. As is known, compression of any substance in a limited space leads to its heating, so freon heats up here to approximately 80 0 C.
• Transferring the resulting heat through the heat exchanger to the heating system, the freon passes to the throttle chamber, where its pressure and temperature decrease, turning it back into liquid.
• Next, the liquid freon is sent back to the depths of the earth to warm up, repeating the cycle again.

IMPORTANT! Of course, the heat pump still requires electricity to operate, but its amount is disproportionately less than with direct electrical heating of the coolant

Types of heat pumps

Heat pumps differ in the way the freon is heated before turning into gas, that is, in the source of “low-level heat”:

• Water for installation near ground-based reservoirs,
• Water to obtain heat from groundwater,
• Earthen,
• Airborne.

The name of the device also includes the type of coolant in your installed heating system, that is, the passport for it must contain the words: “soil-water”, “water-water”, “soil-air”, etc.

Leave the oven door open after baking

This may not be the safest method to heat your apartment, so if you have small children or curious pets, skip the oven idea. But if you are sure that no one will climb into the hot oven while your back is turned, then feel free to use this method of heating the kitchen and neighboring rooms.

Suppose the delicious cookies are ready, you have already turned off the oven. Then leave the oven door open and let the heat escape. And although the kitchen, where you constantly cook, is already the hottest place in the house, this way you can warm up here a little longer than usual.

REMEMBER: the oven must be turned off!

Candle heater

The candle flame shines quite pleasantly, but trying to warm up with it seems crazy.

Californian inventor Doyle Doss and his company DOSS Products offer the original Kandle Heeter system, that is, the “Candle Heater”.

This strange-looking candlestick, its creator claims, can be indispensable during a power outage. Its height is about 23 and its width is about 18 centimeters.

And from its appearance, the inverted pot above the candle attracts attention. The main highlight of the system is hidden in this pot (and in a “past life” it was a flower pot)

This pot is not simple, but composite. It is made of three pots of different diameters, nested one inside the other and connected by a long metal bolt, on which a whole bunch of washers and nuts are strung (fortunately, the pots usually already have holes in the bottom).

An ordinary candle, burning in a room, produces, as it seems, very little heat. But the point here is that its hot “exhaust” simply goes up and quickly evaporates with the ventilation.

Meanwhile, the energy reserve in a candle is not so small. Moreover, with the hot flow of combustion products, most of its energy content leaves, and only a smaller part is converted into light.

The labyrinth cap above the flame collects energy and carefully stores it, heating up quite strongly (the central rod is especially hot). And then this heat is slowly transferred to the air by the entire surface of the ceramic radiator.

The pots also help trap soot from the fire, which helps keep the ceiling clean.

The inventor emphasizes that one such device will in no way save you in the winter when the heating and electricity are turned off, but, on the other hand, it is better than nothing at all.

By the way, clay pots are certainly not bad, but they have low thermal conductivity and it is better to replace them with a similar metal structure, for example, from cans of different sizes or old Soviet cans for bulk products, who else keeps these as a memory :))

Scatter blankets around the apartment

The more warm blankets in your apartment, the better. They can lie on every sofa and every chair. When they started to freeze, they threw a blanket over their shoulders, to warm up, they put the blanket aside. Plus, cute blankets are stylish interior items.

By the way, blankets with sleeves are now popular: they are very comfortable to read a book, work at the computer or drink hot tea.

You can find a warm, beautiful and cozy blanket made of natural wool in the Perina Peroni bedding salon.

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How to make the floor warmer

5. Cover the floors with carpets. There is nothing more unpleasant than standing barefoot on a cold floor in the morning. In addition to feeling great, rugs also provide an extra layer of insulation that keeps cold air from rising up from the floor, which means your feet will thank you.

6. Use a sealant (cotton wool or foam, for example) to seal any cracks in the windows. After this, cover the cracks with strips of cotton fabric (the width of each strip is 4-5 cm). This will prevent heat from escaping from your home.

7. It is advisable to have thick, massive doors in your house that will keep you a lot of heat. You can also upholster an old front door with leatherette filled with foam padding.

It is advisable to plaster all cracks with polyurethane foam. If you decide to install a new door, then see if you can keep the old one, because... two entrance doors create an air gap between themselves, and it insulates heat.

Stock up on heating pads

Of course, an electric sheet is the result of technological progress, but hot water in a rubber heating pad or a simple plastic bottle was, is and will be one of the simplest and most effective means for heating a bed or body. It’s not for nothing that servants put copper hot water bottles in their masters’ beds several centuries ago. And now the rules of the game have not changed: put a heating pad in your bed before going to bed - and enjoy the warmth.

It is worth noting that there are special heating pads on sale that can be placed in the microwave. Heat it for one minute and you are ready to use. In addition, there is a salt heating pad: it heats up due to the crystallization of salt. The temperature of such a heating pad reaches 52 degrees Celsius.

The use of electricity for heating

The use of electricity is one of the ways to create heating for a private house without gas with the installation of a water circuit. Of course, this is an expensive type of heating. In principle, the following electric heating systems for a private home using electricity are possible:

• use of an electric boiler for water heating;
• placement of electric convectors in the premises of the house;
• use of infrared heaters;
• creation of warm floors.

Electric convector

An electric convector is the simplest device for heating air in a living space. The heating device by installing electric convectors impresses with its ease of installation, safety, protection against overheating and environmental friendliness. Infrared heaters are no less convenient for use, and sometimes a combined option of using electric heaters is chosen.

Such devices can be easily combined into one system and ensure its operation in automatic mode. If prices for electric convectors for heating a private home are quite affordable, then the constant increase in electricity tariffs reduces the demand for these convenient heating systems.

Infrared heated floors

One of the most popular options for a country house is infrared heated floors. They are produced in the form of a film, the thickness of which is about 3 mm. Installation of this floor is simple and affordable. The film is laid under any floor covering. Often the film is installed on walls and even on the ceiling. “Heated floors” are most often placed on the ceiling in two-story cottages or in houses with an attic. A large heating area speeds up the heating of the entire room and saves up to 40% of energy.

Electric boiler

Electric boilers are quite a worthy replacement for gas boilers. With their help, it is easy to create home heating alternative to gas heating. Only the price of electricity significantly limits the demand for these convenient and safe devices.

Every 100 m2 requires a power of 10 kW. If you need to install a powerful boiler, you will have to coordinate its installation with Energonadzor. The electrical wiring in the house, as a rule, does not meet the requirements, so an additional line is made from the entrance to the boiler.

According to the principle of operation, boilers that use electricity to heat the coolant are divided into:

1. electric boiler with installed heating elements;
2. electrode electric boiler;
3. induction electric boiler.

All of the above devices have common features that distinguish them from gas and solid fuel boilers. These features, which can be advantages when using boilers for heating country houses:

• high level of security;
• noiselessness;
• simple adjustment of housing temperature, possibility of automation;
• there are no problems with fuel, its transportation and storage;
• do not harm the environment;
• easy to install;
• can be floor-mounted, wall-mounted, three-phase and single-phase.

Electrode boiler

An electrode boiler is the most economical electric boiler for heating a private home, having a small size. Compared to heating element boilers, savings reach 40%. They are characterized by the absence of scale and rapid heating of water.

New heating element

The heating element heats the water in the circuit using tubular heating elements. Its main function is to generate heat. The heating circuit is practically no different from the circuits used for gas or solid fuel boilers. In this case, the correct location of the heating radiators in a private house relative to the windows is necessary. If there are several windows, then radiators are installed under each window.

There are rules and regulations for installing heating batteries:

1. the distance between the wall and the battery is at least 2 cm;
2. between the window sill and the radiator 8 - 10 cm;
3. between the floor and the bottom of the battery 10 - 12 cm;
4. In all cases, it is desirable to install a heat shield.

Induction boiler

An induction boiler can be represented as an electromagnetic inductor, or transformer, which has a primary and secondary winding. The secondary winding is the housing, in which the so-called Foucault eddy currents are induced. Since the boiler body is a short-circuited loop, significant currents are induced in it, heating the boiler body, and therefore the coolant. Induction boilers are more economical than heating element boilers and are quite suitable as alternative types of heating for a private home or cottage.

Brew warming teas

What does “warming” mean? “Any hot tea warms you,” you say. Yes, you can’t argue with that, but still, winter teas must contain special ingredients: ginger, cinnamon, lemon, honey, cloves, pepper. Here, for example, is a recipe for ginger tea with apple and lime:

• 0.5 l of water;
• 3–4 cm of ginger root;
• a pinch of cinnamon;
• 1 tsp. green tea;
• 3 tsp. flower honey;
• carnation;
• 1/2 lemon;
• green apple and lime slices.

Cooking method:

• Peel and finely chop ginger root;
• pour water into a saucepan, add ginger, cinnamon, cloves;
• bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes;
• put honey and lemon (squeeze the juice from the lemon and throw the rest into the saucepan);
• cook for another 5 minutes;
• Brew green tea in a teapot, strain the hot broth into it;
• Pour into mugs, adding green apple and lime slices. Ready!

Protection from rodents during your absence

Whether your home is heated or unheated, mice and rats can enter your home. To avoid attracting undue attention from these pests, place all food supplies out of their reach. It should be taken into account that, having smelled something edible, for example, cereal, rats are able to gnaw even through a cabinet door. And having finished with food supplies, wires, wallpaper, bed linen and everything that can be chewed will be used. You should not use special poison, as it can later harm your pets or you. It’s better to clean up the mess and install an electronic repeller.

Hug!

Stay warm with your loved ones and be happy. And then no cold is scary!

- Embrace!
Surely! And this, I want to assure you, is not only a unique remedy for all seasons, but also a panacea for all worries. Ksenia Nagaeva Blogger
If you feel irritated, go hug with your loved ones! Or, for example, you are on a diet, and someone prepared some baked goods, and then opened the oven to preserve heat. Ignore the kitchen and go to the bedroom or nursery for a dose of cuddles. Believe me, these are better than cookies! Winter is a time when you need to give and receive warmth!

How to care for windows so they last a long time

When dirty, you need to wipe the glass and window sill with a soft cloth soaked in soapy water, or use products designed for cleaning windows. Do not use scratching sponges or powders, acids, or alkalis.

Internal parts, mechanisms, hinges, seals - if they are of high quality - are lubricated in production with special materials. If the apartment is undergoing renovation, it is better to cover the windows with film to protect them from construction dust, advises Stanislav Averkin. About twice a year you can apply silicone grease to the fittings (approximately 100 ₽ per bottle).

Good windows - if high-quality installation was done - can last about 10 years, after which, most likely, the fittings will need to be replaced.

Layered clothing

Clothes for a cold apartment should not just be warm, but multi-layered. Almost like streetwear: the bottom layer is for regulating body moisture, the top layer is for thermal insulation.

It is better to choose underwear from natural materials, for example, pure cotton. This could be a T-shirt or long sleeve. On top you can wear a sweatshirt, woolen sweater, hoodie, or even warm pajamas. It’s the same story with socks: first thin cotton ones and only then thick woolen ones.

Photo source: Piqsels

Heater + camping stove for heating food from cans - alcohol lamp

The design is known abroad as an alcohol stove, or in Russian - an alcohol lamp. The Swedish army has even adopted it.

Alcohol is used because it does not smoke when burned. This means the dishes remain clean and no soot or smoke floats in the air. The design is as simple as 3 kopecks and can be repeated in a few minutes from any available materials. For example, a beer can, coffee can or condensed milk can be used as a donor for the stove.

More specifically: you need a small iron container with an iron lid, or you will have to cover it with something.

The author used a can of Korenovsky condensed milk - it is convenient because there is an almost airtight lid on top, but even without it everything will work if there is a flat-bottomed dish on top.

So: we take a jar, a ruler, a strip of checkered leaves and a marker or any drawing or scratching object.

1. Mark a stripe on the can, moving one third from the top. The easiest way to do this is by spinning the jar while holding the marker in one position.

2. We wrap a strip of paper around the edge of the mark and fasten it with a piece of tape or glue.

3. We begin to drill, pierce with an awl or cut holes with a knife along the marked strip. In this case, I made a series of holes with a diameter of 0.8 mm through 10 mm and through 5 mm - which option is better for you - decide for yourself. You can see how they burn below. A small hole diameter for proper combustion is better than a large one, but you can make 3-5 holes a centimeter each. The uniformity of the holes is a purely aesthetic point in order to get a beautiful crown of flame like from a regular gas stove. All!

Well, not quite of course, now we’re learning how to light it up. You need to add alcohol and close the lid, 50 ml burns for 15 minutes or more. Place on a non-flammable surface and shake lightly so that the alcohol flows a little onto the outside of the jar through the holes. We light the alcohol outside and wait until it burns out. We repeat the procedure until we get a self-sustaining flame from improvised nozzles around the can. Usually it is enough to repeat 2-3 times and everything starts working on its own.

Its operating principle is simple: the flame heats the walls of the jar, the heat is transferred down the walls to the alcohol, the alcohol boils near the walls and the pressure inside increases, the alcohol vapor comes out under pressure through the holes and mixes with air and burns beautifully. Now we put a pot, a kettle, a mug on top, or we just warm ourselves around the stove - it gives a lot of heat and burns for a long time.

For greater heat transfer, you can place a homemade alcohol lamp in a larger iron container, which would heat up and release heat:

​

The smaller the number of holes, the harder it is to light, but the less fuel consumption and less heat from it. A liter of water boils in less than 10 minutes. It is resistant to wind, extinguish by covering, add as much fuel as needed, otherwise you will have to wait for it to burn out or pour the hot alcohol back into the container, which is not safe.

Similar options “for one mug” from a tin can with a filler hole that is closed with a coin and from an aerosol can:

Cheap options

Relatively cheap types of heating your home without gas or electricity include stove and gravity. The latter type includes quite popular heating schemes, called “Leningradka” and “Spider”. Let's take a closer look at all of them.

Stove heating

This type of alternative heating without dependence on gas and electricity is relevant for rural and township one-story houses of small and medium area. For private houses with a kitchen and one recreation room, it is enough to install a metal or brick stove without, for example, installing a water or steam heating circuit. For houses with a large number of rooms, it is necessary to install a pipe heating system with radiators. Such stoves are heated with wood, cellulose waste, pressed sawdust briquettes, wood pellets and coal. The laying of brick stoves should be provided for at the design stage of the house. A metal stove can be installed without any problems in an already built building.

This type of heating is not suitable for two-story cottages; a solid or liquid fuel boiler with a loop circulation system is required.

Gravity heating

The gravity heating scheme is quite simple: a solid fuel boiler is installed (this type of boiler is usually marked “TT”) or a good stove, inside which a heating element (heat exchanger) is mounted. And from this heater, pipe distribution is installed throughout the rooms of the house with the installation of batteries or pipe heaters.

The pipe system has a closed cycle: water is filled into the pipe system from the top point (from the attic, where the so-called open-type expansion tank is installed) until the entire system is filled until a constant level of liquid appears in the expansion tank. The boiler or stove is heated, the water in the heater heats up, and a slight pressure appears, which pushes still cold water further into the pipe system. As a result of heating, the process of liquid movement begins along the circuit from the stove (boiler) to the batteries located in the rooms, and then upward - into a common collector, called by heating engineers “return”, which returns the already cooled water back to the water heater of the stove or boiler. Initially, this scheme was practiced in heating without gas, but with the advent of floor-standing gas boilers it began to be used with it. Gravity heating does not require electricity

But it is important to understand its pros and cons

In such a system, it is important to monitor the water level in the expansion tank. When the level decreases, it is necessary to add water to the system, otherwise you can disrupt the gravity flow process and even burn out the heater pipeline located in the firebox. In gravity heating of private houses, two wiring systems are mainly used:

In gravity heating of private houses, two wiring systems are mainly used:

• "Leningradka";
• "Spider".

It is worth dwelling on their description.

Leningradka

An example of single-pipe distribution with polypropylene pipes

This heating distribution system is the simplest and cheapest. It consists of a single-pipe circuit, in which a direct hot water pipeline from the heating boiler diverges sequentially to all objects, gradually losing heat as it moves from room to room. This solution is especially relevant in one-story houses with heating radiators located at the same horizontal level. When using this wiring in a two-story building, it will be impossible to do without a circulation pump.

Spider

The distribution of gravity heating according to the “Spider” scheme can be considered completely autonomous in the absence of electricity and gas. In such cases, it is best to install a solid fuel boiler. The scheme differs in that hot water is distributed in parallel from the upper collector to the heating radiators, so the coolant temperature in all rooms will be the same. This wiring diagram is quite accessible even for a two-story mansion. The main disadvantage is the difficulty of installing pipelines, since it is necessary to accurately calculate their diameter at the supply to individual batteries in houses with more than one level.

These heating systems are easy to make with your own hands.