During winter, you want to keep the house warm and comfortable. At the same time, you want to save as much money as possible.
Luckily, there is a way to achieve balance. Here are a few dos and don’ts on how to achieve the balance as given by heating service repair professionals:
Don’t crank up the thermostat
When people get into a cold house, they want it to heat up fast. What do they do? They crank up the thermostat. Unfortunately, thermostats don’t work this way. Whether you turn up the heat 10 degrees or 20 degrees, the thermostat takes the same time to warm up 10 degrees.
So, there is no need to raise the thermostat. Cranking up the thermostat puts a lot of strain on the heating appliance as it works harder than it should. As a result, you end up spending a lot of energy. The practice also shortens the lives of the thermostat and furnace.
When you find the house too cold to your liking, set the thermostat at its usual settings then give it time to reach your desired temperature.
Don’t shut vents in unoccupied rooms
Many people shut vents in vacant rooms to prevent hot air from leaving the house. This is wrong.
When you close the vents, pressure builds up in the ducts, which makes the HVAC system work harder than it should.
Vents should always remain open to allow even distribution of air throughout the house. Remember, air has to go somewhere. When you close the vents, you force air to leave the house through leaks present in the ductwork.
For you to keep the air in the house fresh and prevent the system from overworking, keep the vents open. The only thing you should do is to regularly inspect the vents and fix a leaking air duct. This is to avoid losing more hot air than you should through leakages.
Do keep the curtain open on sunny days
When you open the curtains, you allow sunlight into the house, which is a great indirect way of heating the house. As a result, you don’t have to keep the heating system working. This ends up saving you the money you would have spent warming the house.
Do use ceiling fans
To many homeowners, ceiling fans are only valuable in summer, where they use them to cool the house. Do you know you can use the fans to heat the house? All you need to do is to access the switch that reverses the direction of the fan blades.
When you reverse the direction of the blades with the heater on, the fans distribute the heated air throughout the room. This puts less strain on the heater, which sees you spending less on house heating. The fans also increase the overall efficiency of the heating appliance.
Don’t set the temperature too low at night
Since you are covered at night, you don’t need a lot of heat; therefore, it makes sense to lower the temperature. While it’s wise to do it, you shouldn’t lower the temperature too much.
Turning down the temperature will keep the house cool and save you money, but if you let the house get too cold, you risk bursting the pipes.
To keep your heating bills low, turn the heat down 8 degrees for at least 8 hours. When you go out of this range, you overwork the heating appliance, which sees you spending a lot of money heating your home.
Do lock the windows
While you should open the curtains to allow heat into the house, you should keep the windows locked to seal the house from the outside. If the windows have gaps, seal them to prevent cool air from leaking into the house.
Do clean the air filters
Every heating system has air filters that regulate and determine the quality of air in the house. The filters are easy to access. So you have an easy time cleaning and replacing them.
To keep the furnace functioning optimally, clean the filters every month. Never go more than three months before replacing them.
In addition to cleaning the filters, you also should hire a furnace service Falls Church professional at least once a year to inspect the heating system and tune it up.
