Energy-efficient tips for keeping a property cosy at Christmas

With the chill of winter certainly in the air, cosy nights indoors are an inviting thought. Yet, the ongoing high energy prices, means finding energy-efficient measures to conserve heat in a home are more important than ever. 

With a little festive magic, it is possible to conserve heat and create an attractive and eco-friendly property. So, if you’re getting into the festive mood or deciding how many lights to hang out, here are some sustainable design tips for a warm and worry-free Christmas and New Year. 

Improve insulation with furnishings

According to reports, UK homes lose heat three times faster than European neighbours with up to 30% of heat loss in an average home through windows and doors. In some cases, this percentage can be even higher if the windows and doors are old or poorly insulated. Instead of turning up your heating, consider simple ways to improve insulation through softs furnishing ideas with a focus on keeping doors and windows better insulated.

The size, type and placement of your windows can affect the temperature of a room considerably, but often there’s little we can do to move this feature of a home around, unless you’re preparing for much bigger home renovations. A quick fix that is surprisingly effective at trapping heat inside when you need it most is replacing your curtains with thermally lined alternatives. During the winter, thermal curtains help to ensure that cool draughts are kept out. 

From designer draught excluders to festive-coloured cushions, there are many ways to add warmth to interiors. Decorating your furniture with rugs, throws and blankets can help to absorb heat and keep a room warmer and comfortable without ramping up the radiators. For the eco-conscious, draught excluders can also work to fill in holes or gaps and help to retain heat lost through cracks under doors, on sills, and via poorly-filled windows.

These subtle changes to your interiors can boost the overall heat rating of a home without overspending if you’re mindful of day-to-day finances you’d prefer to put aside for Christmas. They also help to separate connecting spaces, such as an open-plan living and dining space, to create zones. Opting for dark colours is a great way to enhance those heat-absorbing properties, and make it warmer without the need to put the heating on. 

Choose rich Christmas colour schemes

As Christmas is a sociable time of year with guests to entertain, seasonal shades are about hibernating for warmth and hosting. Unless you’re jetting off to a Christmas villa somewhere hot and overseas, you’ll want to warm up your property with a log-burning stove and decoratively lit fireplace. You can also refresh interiors with darker paint to add warmth and match colours and festive decors in with existing furnishings. 

Likewise, sparkling and metallic decor is another great way to make a property feel wonderfully festive with gold, silver, bronze, and copper all working well for that Christmas scheme. Silver looks great paired with blue whereas bronze and rust colours create an inviting glow that adds instant warmth. 

If the room doesn’t get a lot of light and feels cold as a result, opting for a bright, welcoming colour like reds, oranges and natural browns will quickly liven up and heat a room. The darker the colour, the more depth and visual interest, you can add for that comforting touch of luxury that blends beautifully with Christmas decorations. 

You can also layer furniture with throws and extra cushions in berry reds and holly greens. You can also include different textures to soft furnishings, like velvet, fleece, and wool. In rooms that tend to feel cold, you might consider painting the ceiling a deeper shade to keep the warmth in. You might also like to coordinate rich colours and textures with bold opulent fabrics and festive prints to enhance the atmosphere and ensure spaces feel welcoming. 

Light up interiors with a Christmas sparkle

Using colours effectively can help reduce electricity bills, adding brightness with colour to make a property appear and feel warmer. Pale colours reflect light and can lessen the need to put on artificial lights, while dark colours can help to make your home feel warmer by absorbing heat so you don’t need to rely as heavily on your heating. 

These small details can make a big difference and choosing lighting is another example. At Christmas, lighting becomes important both inside and outside a home. You can be mindful of eco-conscious choices too, such as replacing traditional bulbs with LED bulbs or shopping for the best solar Christmas lights to add sparkle to interiors and light up the front of a property. 

Alternatively, invest in sustainable candle bridges that shine for hours without the worry of energy use. You might prefer string lights, draped across rooms and furniture or simple star-shaped stand-alone lamps to decorate side tables, dressers, or for a window display full of Christmas spirit. 

Reduce energy costs with carpets 

For a comfy and well-heated home, carpets help retain heat in a property and reduce energy costs by up to 13%. In general, carpets rather than tiles, laminate flooring or stone, are an extremely effective insulating material thanks to their fibres that act like natural insulators and low heat conductors. In addition, the surface pile of carpet with its millions of tiny fibres traps air and further increases its thermal insulation.

With this in mind, the flooring you choose goes a long way to trapping heat and making a property more energy efficient which can add value when you come to sell or let. Laminate or vinyl flooring can leave rooms feeling cold, so investing in thick carpets for the main areas of your property can help to increase the warmth of a property in the colder months. 

Wool carpets are naturally insulating, or you might choose carpets made from recycled materials for an eco-friendly option compared to traditional carpeting. If you’re designing the dining or kitchen area, consider matching in your Christmas table decor or adding ornaments to up the festive theme a notch or two.

Lock in hot air 

Another way to live more sustainably and improve the energy efficiency of your home is repositioning the furniture based on air circulation. For example, if your sofa is currently positioned in front of your radiator, you’re blocking the heat that’s entering the room when you turn the heating on. 

Moving bulky items of furniture out of the way so your radiators or electric fire don’t need to work so hard will save you money and reduce the carbon footprint of your home without you needing to spend any additional money. Likewise, if there are draughty areas of the room, furniture can also be used to block these areas too, such as skirted furnishings or high-back chairs and bookcases. 

Sustainability and festive decor is all about making small changes that work for a particular budget at Christmas time. It’s never too late to make design changes that will positively impact your property, keeping energy bills down and making a home more comfortable, cosy, and inviting during the festive period.

Written by Agency Express guest writer Annie Button