Tips for Heating a Single Room or Area that Just Won’t Stay Warm

Heating Tips Decatur GA

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Are you one of those homeowners who for some reason seem to have a ridiculously hard time heating just one room or small area of your house? The problem clearly isn’t your heat pump or furnace since every other room in the house stays warm once you turn on the heat. It’s just one cranky room or that one side of the house or that new addition. What can you do to put a heating damper on that stubborn little area with a permanent big chill?

Insulation
- You know it’s coming. You hate to hear it. But it’s inescapable. If heating your home to a comfortable state is a piece of cake everywhere but in one specific room, the problem is most likely a lack of proper insulation. As much as you may hate the idea of having to buy and install new insulation, you should actually be thankful if that really is the problem. Why? Because you have so many options available these days when it comes to adding insulation. You may even be able to do the job yourself.
Drafts
- If you know for a fact that the walls and ceiling of a room that is resistant to heating are insulated, it’s time to inspect the area for drafts. Cold air could be undoing all the effort your heat pump or furnace puts into warming a room. Don’t just look, but feel for even a light draft of air all around the windows and doors in the area of the house that won’t stay warm. Then patiently run your hand along baseboards and the intersection of walls and where the wall meets the ceiling. Cold air will look for any way it can to enter your house and just because there is no immediately obvious entry point does not mean that your problem heating the room is not related to a cold draft in some way.
Add a Space Heater
- The ideal use for a space heater would be for heating a room that stays cold even when central heating has no problem warming the rest of the house. Space heaters should never be used for heating large areas and should obviously be turned off and unplugged when you are not actually inside that room that won’t stay warm. Space heaters can be a fire hazard, true, but usually only when they are not used safely and following all directions and guidelines.
Flooring
- When you are inspecting a single room in the house unusually resistant to heating efforts, don’t forget to get down on your knees and check to see if a cold draft is coming from under the house. A bare, exposed floor can put negatively impact heating efforts. That room that just won’t stay warm might well be less of a pain to heat simply by laying down some carpeting. And while you’re at it, adding some thicker curtains certainly won’t hurt, either.
Air Ducts
- The last resort for heating a room that won’t stay warm for most homeowners will be one that addresses air flow. If you cannot help but notice that the room you are having trouble heating is equipped with air ducts that are smaller than the ducts in every other room, you have likely spotted a solution you probably won’t like. In addition to ducts that are too small, some rooms stay cold because the ducts are not centrally located. Replacing a small duct or adding additional ducts will almost certainly solve the heating problem, but it’s probably not going to be a DIY job.