When you hear the phrase "save money on heating," do you imagine yourself shivering away with your thermostat set to a balmy 60 degrees? All too often, advice to save on heating hinges on you heating your house less. This approach will lower your heating bills, but at what expense? Is it possible to save on heating without shivering all winter? Yes. Here's how you do it.
Schedule a maintenance appointment
Most HVAC companies offer a routine maintenance service. They'll come to your home and spend an hour or two lubricating the moving parts in your furnace, tightening nuts and bolts, and cleaning key components. When they are finished, your furnace will use less energy when producing the same amount of heat. The best time to have this maintenance done is in early fall before you have to turn the heat on for the first time.
Change your filter more often
The primary reason to change your air filter more often is to keep your home cleaner. However, frequent filter changes have another happy side effect: they improve furnace efficiency. As a filter gets fuller and fuller, your furnace has to work harder and harder to push air through it. Changing the filter before it gets too dirty keeps your heating efficiency up. Once a month works well for most people. You don't need a really expensive filter when you change it this often, either. An everyday, pleated cotton filter will work.
Open all of your vents
Your instinct may be to close some vents and only heat a few rooms. But this tends to do more harm than good. Closing some vents creates more pressure within the ducts. Your HVAC fan has to work against that pressure to push out warm air. Open all the vents and you lower this pressure, reducing the burden on your furnace and leading to improved efficiency.
Make sure your thermostat is on "auto"
If your thermostat is set to "on," the fan will run all of the time, even if the heat is off. This is usually a waste of energy. Set the thermostat to auto, and the fan will only work and consume energy when your furnace is actively heating.
Turning your thermostat down a few degrees will help lower your energy bills, but you should not have to turn it so low that you're uncomfortable. Use the tips above to save on heating without suffering.
For more information, reach out to a residential HVAC service.
