Kiwis wanting to save money on heating their home this winter could be looking at switching their curtains — but which option is the best for locking heat into your home?
Consumer New Zealand's James le Page told Breakfast curtains were "massively important" for keeping the home warm, and said a household could lose upwards of 45% of heat through windows.
"It's really imperative that you do the best job possible to keep in that heat, otherwise you're just throwing away money."
However, le Page said not all curtains were created equally.
What to look for
le Page said it's important to consider the fit of the curtain to the window frame when shopping around for curtains.
"Ideally, you want the curtain to touch the floor and kind of puddle there a bit.
"You want a have a nice fit either side of the frame and a really nice close fit at the top of the frame as well, which stops the airflow going behind it, in something which we call the 'reverse-chimney effect'."
He said some products were touted as being a "thermal curtain", but were often plastic-backed and did not lock in heat adequately.
"When we tested in the lab, the thermal curtain didn't do very well but — as soon as we added layers to the curtain, what you'd call a second drop — those performed better.
"What you want with any insulation is you want a stable barrier of air. And that's what the two-drop curtains do."
The best option? Blinds
His recommendation when looking at new curtains was to look at the "potentially better option" of blinds.
"Blinds work really well because often they're fitted really snugly inside of a window frame… In our testing, we were blown away by the honeycomb blinds, as they are like a puffer jacket for your window. They do an amazing job.
"In terms of their thermal performance, it was three times better than any curtain we tested."
le Page said people may not like the look of them but they were an option "worth investigating".
"If they're doing a really good job, you're going to have less condensation and so you're hopefully not going to have those same sort of mould problems."
He said another low-cost option for keeping heat in was simply rolling up a towel to put at the top of the curtain rail to lock heat in the home.
"It increased the performance by 25% of just a regular curtain, so its just stopping that cold air from ducking over the top of the curtain rail."
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