The temperature is dropping here in Chicago, which only means one thing: My heating costs are going up!

Naturally, I want to minimize the amount of money I send to the gas company every month, so this past weekend I started looking for opportunities to save on my heating bill. I read many articles that talk about buying a new high efficiency furnace, getting new windows, or adding more insulation inside my walls to save money. All of those are great ideas. They also, however, come along with an expensive price tag and a fair amount of labor. That’s nothing that I want to tackle right now…

Rather than look for the biggest, most expensive solution I could find, I started looking for the low hanging fruit. That is, things I could do rather quickly and cheaply. The first thing that came to my mind was to PLUG THE AIR LEAKS in my house!

Have you ever waved your hand in front of an outlet on an exterior wall in your home only to feel a draft of cold air blowing in? Well, this has a cheap and easy fix. First, go to your hardware store and buy a package of “electrical outlet and switch sealers”. I found them at Home Depot near the weather stripping, and they cost about $3 for a package of 6. Basically this thing is a piece of foam that you install under your outlet or switch plate cover. Installation is quick and easy:

1) Unscrew and remove your outlet or switch cover plate.
2) Stick the piece of foam insulation over the outlet or switch.
3) Screw the outlet or switch plate cover back on.

I did my whole house in about 20 minutes. Now, here’s my disclaimer: With your utmost safety in mind, I recommend that you turn off all electricity to the outlet you are going to insulate before touching it. Kill the breakers, or better yet kill the power to the entire house. I didn’t do this when I did my house, but then again I’m not always a good example to follow . . .

The last thing I did was to buy child proof outlet plugs and plug those things into each outlet. After all, an outlet is basically just a hole in the wall, so why not seal them all up! The childproof outlet covers work nicely for this.

Stay Warm!

The Money Kings

Keywords: heating, insulation, home, outlets, savings

[img_assist|nid=7|title=Insulating Outlet Cover|desc=Heres what the outlet insulation looks like!|link=none|align=center|width=640|height=480]