11 energy efficiency tips to help lower your heating bill this winter

Prepping your home for winter is all about energy efficiency, so your heater doesn't have to work as hard to keep it nice and toasty inside. Give the whole place a good pass before the temperatures really drop and your heating bill will thank you, but so will the windows, walls, and appliances. It's essentially a very basic yearly tune-up to tighten up any pain points in the house.

You probably already know some tricks for battening down the hatches inside (we won't tell anyone if you use those weird sock snakes under the door), but did you know that it's just as important to take a pass outside?

"Your home’s exterior helps keep the indoors warm during the colder months," says Chris Granger, VP at Sears Home Services, who also provided us with the checklist of typical problem areas to address below.

Running through it might not all happen in a single day, so you'll want to start sooner rather than later. Here's how to make a winter home as energy efficient as possible.

Insulate the roof. It might not be the first thing you think of, but insulating your roof is most cost-effective way to keep heat from escaping and cold air from coming inside. Think of it as a winter hat for your home. This step can be as simple as making sure the insulation in your attic is in good shape (and fixing it where it's not), or as thorough as adding a "radiant barrier" (which looks a little bit like tin foil) underneath it for added protection.

Check the siding. You can't actually insulate your existing siding—it's more about purchasing a siding with good insulation when you build the house—but what you can do is check for problem areas, says Chris: rotten areas on wood siding, cracks where that lovely heated air you're paying for inside might be escaping, or even caulking that's shrunken or cracked over time.

Assess your windows and doors. Pick up a can of caulk on your way home today to zip up any cracks or holes in the door and window frames (check outside and inside), and use weather stripping tape on any severely problematic areas. Change the screens if you have storm windows. What's that? Your door doesn't totally shut? Chris says it's probably time to replace it.

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