Search engine visitors - click here to access entire "$ensible Home" web site
Click to back to Main Tips List
In the winter, radiant heat loss from your body through a window or to an outside wall can make you feel chilly. When you feel chilly, you turn up the furnace thermostat and you heating bills go up too. Even though the air temperature in your house is warmer enough, the radiant heat loss to any cold object draws heat from your skin. This is exactly the same process (but in reverse) of how you can feel comfortably warm in the sun on a cold winter day.
In the winter, it is important not to have chairs or a sofa directly in front of a window or a cold outside wall. Rearrange your furniture to avoid this. A high-back chair, facing toward the room and away from the window, is okay because the high back will block the direct radiant heat path from your warm skin to the cold window glass.