You may have seen our previous post about strategies to keep your shipping container home cool during the summer. Now we will look at how to heat your shipping container home during the winter. Although shipping container homes are awesome, they aren’t magical. During the winter, just like any other building, they can get cold. Here are some strategies to ensure your container home will be warm during the colder months. Together these approaches will help you keep your container comfortable all year round.

Open Your Curtains

Even on a cold day, there is still some warmth to be received from the sun. Most people think they should keep their curtains closed all the time to keep the heat in, but they are missing out on the warmth provided by the sun coming in the windows.

Close Your Curtains

Don’t forget to close the curtains once the sun has set for the night and lose any heat built up during the day. If you are in a very cold location, invest in some winter curtains. These are insulated so you have an additional buffer between your warm air inside and the cold air outside.

What About Those Wooden Floors?

Sometimes certain things can just make you feel cold and wooden floors are certainly one of those things.

Many shipping container homes have wooden flooring because they are easy to clean and very long lasting. But, in the winter they don’t provide any warmth.

Cover the wood floors with a lovely thick rug during the winter. Not only are rugs nicer to feel under your feet, they will also help retain some of the heat.

Reposition Your Furniture

It’s surprising how many people have their sofa next to a drafty window. Simply rearranging your furniture can provide a massive heat boost. Any furniture which you sit on for long periods of time, such as your dining room chairs or the sofa in your living room should be positioned away from external openings and placed closer to heat sources.

Wear Warm Clothes

Quite often people focus more on heating their homes up than they do on heating themselves. It’s much easier and quicker to warm yourself by wearing long sleeves, socks, or a sweater. Wearing additional layers is the cheapest way to stay warm during the winter and it’s also really snugly. Other simple things like eating hot foods such as soups or casseroles can warm you from the inside. Don’t forget to have hot drinks like coffee or hot chocolate!

Get a Wood Burner

Wood burners can provide an incredible amount of heat in a very short amount of time. Just a few minutes after lighting they can be generating more than enough heat to keep your living room warm. Not only do they heat up quickly, they are inexpensive to operate, especially if you are using wood which you gathered yourself! Wood stoves aren’t very good at heating your entire house, though. You can however slightly mitigate this by closing the doors to the rooms you don’t want to heat.

Close Doors to Unused Rooms

There is nothing worse than heating up a room which nobody is using. It’s quite easy to walk out of a room and forget to close the door behind you. However, this is a sure fire way to keep the overall temperature in your container home steady. Make sure the heat in your house only spreads to the rooms you are actually using. Just before bedtime, open the bedroom doors to allow the heat to enter so that your bedroom will warm up.

Double Glazing

If you’re in the process of constructing your shipping container home, consider using double glazed windows. Although they are more expensive, it will reduce the amount of heat lost through your windows and also provide a sound buffer to unwanted noise outside.

Seal All Leaks

Make sure that you seal any gaps which let air escape your building. These are most commonly found around your external doors and windows. Using silicone caulk to seal these areas is a quite straightforward DIY job.

Get A Portable Heater

A last resort is to use a portable heater to give you some extra warmth. These only heat a very small area and so aren’t ideal for heating a whole building. They are a fire hazard and cannot be left on overnight.

We hope that these ideas will help keep you and your shipping container home warm throughout the winter!

If you have any other great tips about ways to keep your container warm, feel free to let us know in the comments below.