Helping Your Elderly Relative Stay Warm This Winter

With gas and electricity prices skyrocketing, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to heat our homes. For older people, this is compounded by the fact that they feel the cold more harshly than their younger counterparts do. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to help make them comfortable, and the solutions aren’t necessarily expensive.

Insulation

If they don’t have insulation, they might be able to benefit from government initiatives offering free insulation to homeowners and renters. Check with your local council to see if they know of any schemes happening in the area. Take advantage of this while it lasts.

Draft Exclusion

House can lose a lot of energy through drafts, and this is especially true for properties with single glazing. Draft excluders do not have to be expensive. First, you can buy special sealants to place around doors and windows. This will help to fill any gaps. You simply peel off the backing tape and stick it in place. It’s easy.

Next, make sure that curtains are thick and thermal. If they aren’t, and you can’t afford to buy thermal curtains, don’t worry. You can buy lined curtains and fill them with newspaper or stuffing. If you aren’t too fussed about the decoration, you can buy duvets for as little as £5 and fit those over the windows to act as curtains.

We have one for our front door that we attach using Velcro. During the day, we put it away. It works great. The reason we chose to do this is that I didn’t want a curtain pole over the window. I actually really like it and it doesn’t look weird to me at all – although some other people have commented that it’s a bit odd. Still, it saves us a lot of money because there are no blasts of cold air coming from the front door.

Change the Radiators

Radiators UK are relatively cheap, and you can pick up a super-efficient 3-panel, 3 convector finned, radiator for as little as £50. If your relative has older style radiators, then swapping them out for the latest models will make a lot of difference. You don’t have to replace radiators throughout the house – just in the room where they spend the most time. It can make a HUGE difference, particularly if they only had single panels beforehand.

I hope that you found these tips useful. If you are interested in buying a new radiator, then check out the collection on offer at designerradiatorsdirect.co.uk/.