Keeping your home warm can be pricey these days, especially if you’re already dealing with inflation in other parts of your budget. Here are a few tips to help you keep your heating bills down and save on heating.
Maintain Your Furnace to Save on Heating
Routine furnace maintenance (and heat pump maintenance, if you have a heat pump) is one of the best ways to avoid energy waste. If your heating system isn’t working at its best, it may take a lot more energy to keep your home at a comfortable temperature.
There are some maintenance tasks you can do yourself, like replacing your furnace filter. You should replace this filter every 90 days so that your furnace runs more efficiently, doesn’t work as hard to keep your home comfortable, and ultimately lasts longer.
However, it’s also a good idea to have a professional do annual furnace maintenance. Annual maintenance can help you avoid breakdowns and more costly repairs.
If you are looking for professional furnace maintenance in the Greater Seattle area, reach out to our team at Paragon Heating and Home Comfort Solutions. We can answer any heating questions you have and give you a quote.
Seal Your Home
Poor sealing can cause you to lose a surprisingly large amount of heat. For many homeowners, weather-stripping and caulking is the most effective way to reduce energy waste.
Many homes have leaks around the doors, windows, ducts, and pipes. If you feel a draft around these areas, you can look for holes or cracks and seal the area with caulking. Electric wall plugs and switches can also let cold air in, but you can prevent leaks by installing pre-cut foam gaskets behind the switch plates.
As a bonus, you might find that fixing leaks and holes helps you avoid pest problems. It’s an all-around win!
Improve Your Insulation to Save on Heating
Many older homes were built with little insulation. If you live in one of these homes, you may be losing large amounts of heat through your walls, floors, and ceilings.
Attics tend to be especially poorly insulated. Insulating your attic can help you keep the rest of your home warm and avoid losing heat to the outside world.
Change Your Thermostat Settings
Do you change your thermostat settings when you’re away from home? You might be able to save quite a bit by not running your heat when you’re at work, away from home, or asleep.
You can program most thermostats to automatically turn the heat down at certain times. Some can even sync with your smartphone’s location and turn the heat down when you’re a certain distance away from your house.
This strategy makes the most difference for people who spend a lot of time away from home. If you work from home or otherwise spend most of your time in the house, this strategy may not make as much of a difference.
Get an Energy-Efficient Heating System to Save on Heating
This tip won’t save you money right now, but installing an energy-efficient furnace will pay off in the long run. This is especially true if you need a new heating system anyway. If you replace an old furnace with a new, energy-efficient one, your energy usage will probably drop quite a bit.
A gas furnace from before 1985 might be 70% efficient or less today. A new gas furnace could be up to 95% efficient, depending on the model you buy. That’s a lot less energy waste!
A heat pump can boost your energy efficiency even further than a high-efficiency furnace. Since heat pumps work by pulling heat in from the outside rather than creating new heat, they often “produce” more energy than they consume. They can be well over 100% energy-efficient in moderate climates. Best of all, they can work in reverse to keep your home cool in the summer.
If you want to install a new heating system in your Seattle-area home, reach out to Paragon Heating and Home Comfort Solutions. We can give you a quote and answer any heating questions you have. Contact us today!
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