When winter settles in and cold drafts creep through every corner of your home, the first instinct is to crank up the thermostat. Yet a surprisingly simple trick using ordinary table salt can help you feel warmer without raising your heating bill at all. This forgotten household hack is gaining fresh attention in 2026 as energy costs remain a concern for millions of families.
Why your home feels cold even with the radiators on
Many people notice that certain rooms never seem to warm up properly. Cold air lingers near windows, and floors stay icy despite the radiators running for hours. The problem often has less to do with your heating system and more to do with moisture trapped inside your living spaces.
Humid air feels significantly colder than dry air at the same temperature. As a result, a room at 20 °C with high humidity can feel just as chilly as a drier room set to 18 °C. This is why some households keep pushing the thermostat higher without ever reaching real comfort.
Excess indoor moisture comes from everyday activities: cooking, showering, drying laundry indoors, and even breathing. In poorly ventilated homes, that moisture has nowhere to go. It clings to walls, condenses on windows, and makes the whole atmosphere feel damp and cold.
« Reducing indoor humidity by just a few percentage points can make a room feel one to two degrees warmer, without changing the thermostat at all. »
The forgotten salt trick that absorbs moisture naturally
Coarse salt — the same kind you keep in your kitchen — is a natural hygroscopic substance. That means it draws water vapour out of the air and traps it. Placing small bowls of coarse salt in the dampest areas of your home can noticeably reduce ambient humidity over the course of a few days.
To readThese Vegetables Grow Perfectly in Your Kitchen in Just a Few Weeks: Here Is What to Plant in 2026To set it up, simply fill a shallow dish or wide bowl with about 200 grams of coarse salt. Then place it near a window sill, in a bathroom corner, or beside any wall where condensation tends to form. Within 48 hours, you may notice the salt becoming wet or even forming a small pool of liquid at the bottom of the dish.
Once the salt is saturated, you can dry it out in the oven at a low temperature and reuse it several times. This makes the method virtually free, entirely non-toxic, and accessible to every household. Moreover, it requires no electricity and produces no waste beyond the salt itself.
- Cost: a bag of coarse salt costs less than one euro and lasts weeks
- Placement: target window sills, bathrooms, basements, and laundry areas
- Frequency: replace or dry out the salt every one to two weeks
- Safety: keep bowls away from pets and small children
- Bonus: salt also helps prevent mould growth on damp walls
How less humidity translates into real warmth and lower bills
The science behind this trick is straightforward. Dry air conducts heat away from your skin more slowly than moist air does. So when you lower the humidity in a room, your body retains its own warmth more efficiently. You feel warmer even though the air temperature has not changed at all.
For this reason, many energy advisors now recommend tackling indoor moisture as a first step before increasing heating output. Proper ventilation, dehumidifiers, and — for those on a tight budget — coarse salt can all contribute to a drier indoor climate. Each percentage point of humidity you remove brings you closer to genuine comfort.
According to energy-saving guidelines widely shared in 2026, lowering your thermostat by just one degree can reduce your heating bill by roughly 7 % over the winter season. If a simple salt trick lets you turn the dial down by even one degree without feeling colder, the savings add up quickly — especially across several months.
Beyond the financial benefit, a drier home also protects your walls, furniture, and health. Persistent dampness encourages mould spores, dust mites, and respiratory issues. By absorbing that excess moisture, salt serves a dual purpose: comfort and prevention.
Pairing salt with other low-cost habits for maximum effect
Salt alone will not solve a serious damp problem. In homes with structural moisture ingress or faulty insulation, professional solutions remain necessary. Still, when combined with a few other easy habits, the salt method becomes part of a powerful daily routine.
For instance, opening windows for five to ten minutes each morning creates a rapid air exchange that flushes moisture out. This brief burst of ventilation cools the room only temporarily, yet it dramatically lowers humidity levels for hours afterward. Consequently, your heating system has to work less to maintain a comfortable feel.
Keeping furniture a few centimetres away from exterior walls also helps air circulate and prevents hidden condensation. Likewise, using lids on pots while cooking and running an extractor fan during showers stops large amounts of steam from flooding the rest of the house.
A small gesture that brings warmth back into your daily life
In a season where every euro counts, rediscovering a trick as humble as a bowl of salt feels almost too good to be true. Yet the principle is grounded in basic physics, and thousands of households across Europe have already tried it with positive results. The key is consistency — place the bowls, check them regularly, and combine the method with good ventilation habits.
To readHeating bills gone: simple tricks to stay warm all winter without turning on the radiatorComfort during winter is not only about heating power. It is about how your body perceives the air around it. By removing the invisible layer of dampness that clings to your rooms, you restore a sense of warmth that no thermostat setting can replicate on its own.
This 2026 winter, before you reach for the thermostat dial, try reaching for the salt shaker instead. A few bowls placed in the right spots might just transform the way your home feels — and the way your next energy bill reads. Sometimes, the most effective solutions are the ones hiding in plain sight on your kitchen shelf.
Crédit photo © DivertissonsNous
