When winter weather strikes, you likely rely on your furnace to keep your family warm. While feeling warm and cozy is nice, it can be expensive on your budget. Fortunately, by employing the energy-saving tips below, you can help to keep your wintertime heating bills in check this coming season.
Boost Your Insulation
Insulation is an important component of any house. It acts as a barrier to keep the cold outside air from seeping into your home. Unfortunately, if your property is insufficiently insulated, it could be allowing cold air to enter your house. By beefing up the amount of insulation in your home, you can drastically reduce your heating costs. This is because your heating system won’t have to run as much to combat any cold air coming into your residence.
Let in the Sunshine
The sun is one of the best sources of free heat available to you. When the sun comes out, it’s time to open up those curtains and blinds to let it in. It’s a good idea to consider rearranging the setup of your rooms so that you’ll be positioned in line with the sunlight coming in the windows. This will help to keep you warm and allow you to leave your heating system running less.
Upgrade Your Thermostat
One of the best ways you can keep your energy bills low is to be more efficient with your heating system. Upgrading to a programmable thermostat can easily allow you to enjoy a more efficient heating schedule for your home. With a programmable thermostat, you have the ability to keep your house cool while you’re not at home and warm while you are. If you opt for one of the newer smart thermostats, it can learn your schedule and make more energy-efficient suggestions to get the most energy savings from your heating system.
Seal Your Ducts
Your ducts are responsible for taking the warm air your furnace produces and delivering it to the rest of your house. When your ducts have leaks or gaps in them, it can allow the warm air to escape. This translates into less of that warm air making it to the rooms of your home where your family wants to stay warm. To reduce your heat loss, you should have a professional seal any gaps and leaks that you have in your ducts.
Change Your Furnace Filter
While your furnace filter is a necessity to ensure that the indoor air quality in your home stays high, it can be a double-edged sword. When your furnace filter reaches the end of its usable lifespan, it turns into a barrier full of debris. Your furnace’s fan has to work much harder to force air through that barrier. By simply replacing your filter when it gets full, you can prevent your heating system from having to work harder to deliver heat to your house.
Turn on the Ceiling Fans
Ceilings fans can be a great addition to your heating system and help keep your home comfortable during the winter season. You’ll want to have your fan operating in a clockwise direction. This allows it to force air toward the ceiling. The air is then forced toward the walls and down toward the floor. Since heat naturally rises, having your ceiling fan on can allow it to force that warm air back toward the floor. When your fan is recirculating the rising heat back toward your family, you can stay warm without having to crank up the thermostat setting.
Get an Energy Audit
Most heating professionals can perform an energy audit on your home. They’ll utilize a device known as a thermal imager to determine where heat is being lost from the interior of your house. By identifying the biggest places of heat loss, you can be more knowledgeable about which solutions will best fit these problem areas.
Use Humidifiers
The wintertime brings cool, dry air. By reintroducing moisture back into the air via humidifiers, you can help to make your home feel warmer. When your house naturally feels warmer, you’ll need to use your heating system less to be comfortable indoors. You should consider either installing a whole-home humidifier or placing humidifiers in the most trafficked rooms of your residence.
Leading Heating Service Provider
Northwest HVAC Heating & Cooling is your leading heating service provider for the Vancouver region. We also provide quality cooling and heat pump services. Give us a call today to get the assistance you need with installation, maintenance or repair.
