It's now September 2026. I have a heat dome from hell on me, and my plastic and blankets that I left on the doors and windows are worth their weight in gold. I can hear the neighbor's ACs running non-stop, Mine kicks on every 3 hours or so for 15 mins....
BUT!!
It's CHEAP BLANKET ACQUISITION SEASON!!
The local thrift stores put out the stuff they have been accumulating in storage all summer, and the choices are wide!
If you have ANY urge to change your house heat issues for the winter, NOW is time to go shopping!
After last winter, I have a much better idea of what works best for me. and what is pretty useless. I'm not sure how to describe what I'm choosing as I feel a blanket or rug to see if it works, AND I have multiple places I'm covering this year and they have different parameters. I'll try...
Covering Floors: Rugs you can layer, if it feels thick and tightly woven, and is square and may fit in an area well, YES. If it's soft and cute and an odd shape, NO. Blankets for the floors are the same way, going for thick feeling, tightly woven, nothing slick that will slip, the bigger the better, just fold them to fit.
Covering Doors Any door you want to be able to open has to have a covering that flexes easily, nothing stiff, nothing so thick that even if you move it out of the way the door still can't open. I have a sheet of plastic over each door, shower curtains with rings that slide on bars, those are amazing how much draft they cut! You don't realize how much air comes through a door until it's not there. Blankets are best if you can get them above the rod holding the plastic so they keep the air from coming in the crack. Look farther down in this post for a bit about valences if you are not familiar with them. Doors do great with a valence. Blankets for doors need to be flexible, and long, putting two layers of blankets that are flexible is better than one bulky sleeping bag that you can't move to use the door. Put that sleeping bag over a door you don't plan to open, make sure there is plastic or other vapor barrier, if blankets with a lot of air space in the fill get wet from condensation they just won't dry. So LONG and FLEXIBLE beats thick and fluffy, and lots of safety pins can add something for length to any blanket.
Covering windows Decide which windows you want to able to uncover for sun or visibility, and which ones you just want to not see until spring. Again use a vapor barrier for wind if you can. Leave a bit of air movement to keep any condensation able to dry up. Sealing windows too tight can get messy. But since you want a bit of air flow, this is where the fluffy ones are great, they let some air movement through but slow it down a LOT. Those cheap throws with the fluffy back side that are all over the thrift stores are great for regular sized bedroom type widows in a usual suburban type house. They are not big enough for big windows. Comforters are great for big windows, they take up a lot of space even when slid or pulled over, so don't put them on windows you want to open unless you account for that. Windows you want to open need to have flexible, and long enough to cover everything you want covered.
So what am I buying right now? Thick blankets that are tightly woven that I can put on the floor with the rugs. Long flexible blankets for openable doors, thick ones with airspace like sleeping bags or comforters over doors or windows that won't be opened. Cheap fluff backed throws for bedroom windows, flexible and good lengths for openable windows. I walk through the store feeling blankets, crochet with a lot of holes? Nope. Something thin that is stiff? Nope. Small, cheap, thin and don't feel like they will stop air? Nope. Tight weave and big? Yes. Flexible mid-tight weave of a good size? Yes. By shopping now I'm not desperate and can choose what I want.
Valences or cornices are basically a way to keep air flow from coming up the top of a curtain. They can be fabric or rigid, basically something that stops air from moving behind the curtain and flowing out the top. If you think about how us permie types make solar heaters, we put a collector space behind glass, so the sun heats it up, the heat goes up and out to where we want to use it, and cool air comes in the bottom to be heated. Behind your curtains that's GREAT during the day... at night the process reverses, the cold window cools the air, it flows down, the warm air from the top of the room gets pulled in and it gets cooled too... You DON'T want your window covering making the house colder at night. Putting something across the top that doesn't interfere with the curtain movement stops it, as does putting the bottom firmly to the wall. I make my blanket drapes go to the floor, then I use a rolled up blanket, tied neatly, like a big draft stopper, and kick it across the bottom of the window coverings. AND where I can, I put something to stop the top draft.
The basic idea behind a wooden valence:
You can use a cardboard box too, make it touch the ceiling and go down past the curtain rods. Cover any of these with whatever you want to look at. Fabric valences are basically the same idea: Attach it high, make sure your curtains won't tangle in it, and cover up that air flow at the top of the window.
Look up pictures for ideas of what you can do with what you have or can get.
This, no matter what it's made of, will block a LOT of air movement.
No matter what you might want to do to keep your house warmer this winter, it's currently
CHEAP BLANKET ACQUISITION SEASON!!!
I've budgeted $100.00 for extra blankets this fall, that's less than I saved each month on my heating bill last year. I consider this a good investment!
