A Kiwi home and renovation expert has shared her top strategies for keeping warm and comfortable without breaking the bank this winter.
Home and renovation expert Jen Jones said the amount of comfort needed was "subjective" and each household would need to find their right balance between comfort and cost-effective measures.
"The more damp a home, the harder it is to heat a home and your heat source has to work a lot harder," she told Breakfast.
"So opening curtains, opening windows in the morning, however counter-intuitive that may sound, and running extraction fans when you're cooking or showering to take away some of that condensation."
However, she said from a cost-of-living perspective, adding extra layers of warm clothing such as socks or a jumper was a good place to start before reaching for the heater dial.
She said constantly turning the heat source on and off to blast the space and attempt to warm it up quickly uses more energy than having a heat source on for longer at a lower level.
"Thinking about how much consumption is going to be used by that heat source and sometimes longer at a lower level is more sustainable and more cost-effective than on/off bursts."
Earlier this year, James Le Page from Consumer New Zealand told Breakfast an oil column heater or a panel heater fixed to the wall was the best option for heating bedrooms.
Jones said while oil heaters were "one of the most accessible" options, she warned they were one of the most expensive to run.
She revealed her personal strategy was to use pre-scheduled timer features to run the heater at specific times to "utilise the heat source during off-peak power".
"That means we're paying less per kilowatt hour of power and also not straining the energy source from a non energy-renewable source point of view as well, so that it's more sustainable."
She said there were also "bigger picture" ways to heat the home by putting rugs down, adding more insulation or looking at more effective window coverings such as thermally-backed curtains.
"Making sure your curtains and blinds are thermally backed to make sure they keep that heat in when they're closed."
Jones said a lot of heat could be lost through the windows and recommended getting someone in to check the seals.
"So you can run your heater slightly off peak, warm the home, close those curtains, keep that heat in and throw on some extra layers as heat dwindles toward the end of the night."
Asked what the ideal temperature was to run the heater at, Jones said it was "around that 20 to 22 degrees Celsius mark".
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