5 Ways To Stay Warm at Home in South Korea (For the Cheap Seats)

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Complaining about the cold when you aren’t wearing the proper hat and gloves is as silly as complaining about the heat because you wore a snowsuit to the beach in Hawaii. Korean winters are easily managed with preparation and consideration for what is to come. You will find plenty of affordable cold weather gear being sold in street stalls, dollar stores, etc. So start preparing. Either that or you can continue to dress like it’s fall for the rest of the year and complain about it endlessly as if there is nothing you can do about it. Personally, I prefer to be warm rather than whinging.

Here are the tricks we use to stay warm in the winter while also keeping utilities low.

Bubble Wrap your windows.

Putting bubble wrap over your windows is incredibly inexpensive (20,000 won for our 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment) and an easy thing to do to save a few bucks.  They sell bubble wrap at Emart and Homeplus as soon as the weather gets cold since this is a common thing to do. The shops near traditional markets also sell large rolls of the bubble wrap.

We go through and cover every window in the house and it keeps us at least 5 degrees warmer and reduces our spending.  Since I don’t like to spend money heating my house, this a huge difference for us. It can save you between 50,000-100,000 a month.  You do need to be careful of a few things: 1) be sure not to damage your walls taping to paint or wallpaper, 2) with the increased humidity you may need to use a de-humidifier to prevent mold (your aircon may have a built in dehumidifier), and 3) you may need to leave a least one window uncovered for venilation.

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Here is a quick explanation and tutorial. We do this every year and keep us warm and our bills much lower.


Door Guard

A nice way to keep a bit of extra heat in the house is to use a front door guard during the winter. We actually have used tub socks and rice, but here is an option for using an old pair of blue jeans for a DIY door guard.  You can also use tape instead of sewing if you don’t feel fancy.  You can also buy a body pillow for about 20,000 and use that just as easily.

 

Bed & Sofa heated mats

We use an electric heated bed mat. There are also electric couch, chair and floor mats. They come in all price ranges and really make winter more enjoyable.  Affordable ones are only 20,000 – 30,000 won at the local markets. We buy a few and spread them throughout the house so that whenever we are sitting down or laying down it’s lovely and warm.

You can also find fancy ones for between 75,000 – 125,000 depending on size.  These are more plush and often have two controls on the queen size so that each person can feel their own level of warmth. Honestly though, we just buy two twins at 20,000 each and put them next too each other. We are cheap.

They additional bonus is that they don’t run your electric bill up. It’s a nice way to stay warm and save on the electric bill.

The one warning is that they will dehydrate you so be sure to drink a lot of water before bed and when you wake up. Also, be sure to turn them off when you aren’t home.

Using your heated floor the local way

In order to stay warm and not spend all your money, it’s important to understand your floor heating system. Here is a relatively not boring summary on this from EYK

Fuzzy Slippers (and everything else)

This sounds silly, but winter is a lot more enjoyable if you have a good pair of fuzzy slippers, fuzzy bathrobe, fuzzy pants, fuzzy socks, and… well… fuzzy everything. Keep your feet warm and the rest of you follows. We dress this way at home all winter and kind of love it.  Here is EYK once again, showing you a few more tricks.

Five Blogs to Read About Thriving through South Korea Winters!!!

You need to be as prepared as possible for winter in Korea. Make sure to read a variety of blogs on the topic because all of the information is going to come in handy. Here are five blogs that give great advice that we take all the time: