During winter, many homeowners complain they spend colossal amounts of money on heating up their homes.
This is because they do things that strain their appliances hence the high energy consumption. Do you want to heat your house at a low cost? Here are five secrets on how to do it as given by furnace repair services experts:
Keep cold air out of the house
Allowing cold air in the house makes the furnace work too hard to warm the house. As a result, it consumes a lot of energy. To reduce the amount of energy the heating appliance consumes, control the amount of cold air getting into the house.
Keep the windows and doors closed at all times during the winter season. You also should consider adding a layer of insulation to the walls to keep the warm air trapped in the house.
Are there large gaps in the doors and windows? Close them with weatherstripping. If the heating costs are still high, hire a professional to inspect the vents and fix them if leaking.
Don’t crank up the thermostat when it gets cold
What do many homeowners do when they get into a cold house? They crank up the thermostat a few extra degrees. They do this with the hope the furnace will pump out hot air fast. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
The thermostat doesn’t work faster simply because you set it higher. This means if you want an ideal temperature of 70, setting the thermostat to 80 won’t make it get to 70 faster.
Doing this only makes the furnace work harder than it should, which makes it consume a lot of energy.
Regardless of how cold the house is when you step in, don’t even think about raising the thermostat setting. Simple set it to your desired temperature and let it naturally reach the desired temperature.
Keep the vents free of obstructions
In most homes, the vents are located in the areas where you want to place the sofas and other pieces of furniture. Since homeowners don’t want to give their homes a confused look, they place the furniture just next to the vents, which blocks them, preventing effective air flow.
As you might guess, this makes the furnace work harder than it should.
For you to achieve even distribution of warm air, keep the vents free of obstruction. This might require you to move the furniture around to clear the way.
If you don’t want to change the location of the sofas, consider other heating options such as hydronic heating. This is where you use hot water to heat the house.
Turn down the thermostat when you aren’t in the house
When you aren’t at home, you will be wasting energy, keeping the furnace working at optimal levels. To cut on your heating costs, turn down the furnace when going to work in the morning. At night, you are covered so you don’t need the heat from the heating appliances. Turn down the thermostat settings at this time too.
For you to have an easy time controlling the furnace, invest in a programmable thermostat. In addition to this thermostat being easy to set when you are in the house, you can also easily control it when you are away. For example, even if you forget to lower the setting while at home, you can lower it while at work (using an app).
Replace the filter when it gets dirty
Filter replacement is a basic furnace maintenance practice. Unfortunately, since the filter is often out of sight, usually in the attic or basement, many homeowners forget about it. This results in the furnace working too hard than it should.
For you to keep your heating costs low and extend the life of your heating appliance, regularly inspect the filters and if dirty, clean them. In some cases, they are too dirty that you have to replace them.
According to heating service repair Arlington VA professionals, the frequency at which you replace the filters depends on the quality of the air filters and the environment you live in.
If you have cheap filters, you need to replace them more regularly. It’s the same case if you live in a dusty environment.
