Every winter it creeps up – that first really expensive heating bill.
Last month you didn’t think twice about turning the furnace on when it got a little frigid. But those cool days piled on and keeping your house at a comfortable temperature got more and more strenuous.
It doesn’t have to cost so much, but our regular living habits just aren’t ideal for the cold months.
Make these 4 changes to your family’s habits this winter and enjoy the difference you see in your next heating bill. Get the whole family on board and you’ll be amazed at the change.
If the kids are away at school or you don’t have other family visiting, why heat all those bedrooms? That’s a lot of square footage to keep warm for no good reason, and a lot of money down the drain.
Block the vents and close the doors in any rooms you don’t really use. When you do, rarely, need those rooms, just open the doors and vents. They heat up in about 15 minutes.
What is the space between your living space and garage like? If a mud room or laundry room bridges the gap between the garage and the rest of the house, try blocking the heat and closing the door. You might be surprised by how much just 1 small room can change your expenses.
15 degrees Celsius feels a little cold in the desert. In the jungle, 15 is a comfortably warm temperature. The difference is humidity. Humid air feels warmer, even if it isn’t.
A whole house humidifier allows you to set your thermostat a few degrees lower without any loss of comfort.
A 3 degree lower setting on your thermostat can save about 10% on your heating bill.
Humid air also reduces annoying winter stuff like nosebleeds and static electricity shocks. And humid air actually reduces incidents of seasonal colds and flu.
If you spend most of your time in the kitchen, family room, office and one bedroom, save
money by lowering your thermostat 5 full degrees and heating those areas directly with:
Keep a small fire in your wood burning stove and plug in 1 or 2 small space heaters at opposing ends of your main floor. If the space has decent airflow, you might be able to turn off your furnace for days on end, even in the dead of winter.
And don’t forget about your ceiling fans. Set them to spin clockwise at a low speed to circulate the warm air without creating the cooling breeze it would in the other direction.
Maintenance is a smart investment. $100 in maintenance can save your family THOUSANDS in repairs.
A furnace struggling to pump out warm air because of a clogged filter or some more complicated issue will not run like the finely tuned machine it is (or should be).
A simple clogged filter (one of the most common issues we encounter) nearly doubles the work your furnace puts into warming the house. So a quick filter replacement, part of routine maintenance, can save you hundreds of dollars through the winter and costs you almost nothing.
These simple changes can save you hundreds of dollars over the winter. What will you do with your extra $500?
However you plan to spend it, book your maintenance service today and start saving on winter heating immediately.
