It seems to be an annual issue… the weather starts to cool down, and fuel prices go up. When budgets are tight (and whose budget isn’t tight these days?), even small increases in heating costs can be painful for the average family. The good news is that there are several steps you can take to help your central heating system run more efficiently – saving you money!
If your heating system is more than 10 years old, it may be costing you money by being less efficient and requiring more energy to run than is necessary with newer systems. Having a newer model can help you maximize your utility spend, as more recent models are designed to use less energy to produce the same amount of heating power.
If you don’t have the budget right now for replacing your furnace, or if you already have a newer model of furnace, there are several steps you can take to lower your heating cost – remember, every little bit adds up! Every step you take to increase your heating system’s efficiency adds to the savings you will see on your utility bill. For example, if your heating system uses filters, making sure that you replace these on a regular basis can make a difference in how efficiently your furnace is able to run.
How old is your thermostat? Older versions are finicky, and need to be perfectly level in order to read the ambient temperature correctly. While a furnace replacement may not be in your budget, upgrading your thermostat to a newer, more accurate model can be a great way to maximize the efficiency of your heating system.
If you upgrade to a digital thermostat that is programmable, you can set it to automatically raise and lower the temperature of your home to comfortable levels for each time of day. For example, if your home is empty during the day, you can keep your home at a slightly lower temperature and not waste the heating expense! Keeping the home a little cooler while you sleep is another option that can help to save on your utility expenses.
Remember, your home’s heating system is most efficient when there are not wide swings in temperature – so try not to vary your home’s ambient temperature by more than a few degrees. It can actually require more energy to accommodate big temperature differences than what is necessary to maintain a consistent temperature, so while lowering your thermostat by a couple of degrees (while the home is vacant, or during the nighttime hours) can be a cost-savings measure, lowering the temperature by a dozen degrees may have the opposite effect on your heating bills.
If you have rooms that are not frequently used – like a guest bedroom – you can shut off the vents in these rooms to help save on your utility bills. You can get magnetic covers at your nearest hardware store, or simply use the lever on the vent itself to close it. This allows the air in your ductwork to simply flow past the unused room, heating the areas you use more often. And in rooms that you spend a lot of time in, you can use vent covers that help to direct the airflow into the room more efficiently, helping to heat your most-used spaces quickly and consistently.
One of the biggest things you can do to increase the efficiency of your heating system is to check your windows and doors for leaks and drafts. Much of the time, a home’s heat loss comes from older windows and doors – and something as simple as replacing worn weather stripping can make a really big difference in your utility bills.
Make sure that you have a professional technician come in every year for an annual maintenance and performance check on your heating system – the technician will be able to tell if your furnace and heating system are operating as efficiently as possible, and can make recommendations if it is not.
With a little bit of thought and planning, you can maximize the efficiency of your furnace to help lower your utility bills this winter!
