Tips on how to improve your home in the cold

Keeping the heat in, chilly air out of your home

Several experts explain what you can do now that will help save you energy during the cold snap. FOX 13's Danielle Zulkosky reports. 

TAMPA - Winter is back in Tampa Bay and experts say you can improve your home's energy efficiency to keep your heating bill low.

Travis Logue is a home inspector and director of operations at Pillow to Post Home Inspectors. 

He brought an infrared camera out to show where cold air was making it into a home.

"That dark color right there, in the top right-hand corner of the door," Logue said. "That's telling us that the weather's stripping, there's a gap in the weather stripping, and you have exterior air coming into the interior of the home."

What they're saying:

Logue said you can fix this issue easily.

"You want to check your weather stripping around the door," Logue said. "A lot of time pets will claw at the weather stripping causing little fractures in the weatherstripping. So you want get that replaced."

Another tip: check on your insulation.

"That's a space where exterior air is coming into the attic and then showing up on this interior wall because of the lack of insulation," Logue said of the top corner of the room."

Heat naturally moves toward cold and in Florida some homes are built to keep the heat out, so insulation can wear down throughout the year.

READ: Will it snow in Tampa? Rare 'Gulf-effect' setup could bring flakes this weekend

Yvette Dickinson is a construction project manager for Florida Home Partnership. That group helps improve energy efficiency in homes.

"A lot of times, insulation gets settled in the summer, gets shrunk, it shrinks, so you have to make sure you always look at your insulation in your attics," Dickinson said.

But don't take it too far. Engineer Bruce Rockwell explains how Florida homes should not be over insulated.

"You can over-insulate where the house then gets moldy," Rockwell said. "So you got to have ventilation to address those kinds of issues."

What you can do:

There are ways you can improve your home's efficiency. Start by contacting your electric company. TECO and Duke Electric offer programs to help.

"Many times, you have a free energy program where they'll come out," Rockwell said. "They'll shoot the house with an infra-red camera, and they may give you incentives for installing weather stripping."

If you are looking for something to do tomorrow, you could start some small home improvement projects.

"Caulking windows, caulking your AC vents, making sure your weather stripping on your front door and rear doors are in place and there's no gapping around doors," Dickinson said.

If you are looking for an even bigger task, take a look at your HVAC unit and decide if you want to upgrade it to something more efficient.