5 Quick Ways to Cut Your Heating Costs

During the winter months, heating your home is an important step to staying comfortable throughout the season. It can also help with keeping you in good health. However, if you don’t have a high efficiency furnace, the cost of heating your home can get a little higher than you may like. The average electric bill can be lowered significantly using these tips.

1. Check the Age of Your System

The first step is to make sure that your heating system isn’t too old. Older heaters are more likely to spike your average gas bill or electric bill, depending on how your home is heated, because they just don’t work as efficiently as they age. It is a good idea to look into the age of your furnace as well as check how often they should be repaired or replaced.

2. Be Smart About Heat Usage

Another way to save money this year is to turn the heat down a couple degrees when you aren’t home. Although this may not work for everyone, such as those that have pets, just a change of a couple degrees can lower your heating costs. For those that do not have pets at home, give your heating furnace a break while you are not home.

A programmable thermostat can do wonders for those that may forget to change the heat when trying to follow the above step. This can allow your home to change the temperature for you depending on your schedule, so that you don’t have to remember to change it yourself. One great advantage to this is that you can program it to start up the house furnace before you get home, so that it is a comfortable temperature when you walk in the door.

3. Change Your Filters

Make sure that you are regularly changing the filters in your furnace. If your filters are blocked, this is decreasing the airflow, therefore making the system less efficient. It will have to use more energy to do the same thing, causing an unnecessary increase to your energy costs. It will save you a lot of money long term to just change the filter, and it’s safer for you as well.

4. Insulate the Home

Another important tip is to make sure that you have other parts of your home, such as the doors and windows, well maintained. If there are cracks in the weather stripping or there is something wrong with a door or window, you could be losing a lot of precious heat that way. You can get an inspection done to check for areas where you may be losing heat, and it is relatively easy to get small cracks repaired or to replace weather stripping. If you haven’t had these repairs done in a few years, then that could very well be the cause of your sudden increasing bills.

5. Contact a Professional

Sometimes the best course of action is to contact a professional to take a look at your home and your heating system. They’ll be the best source for identifying problem areas and providing effective solutions to help you save on your heating costs.

Have you noticed that your energy efficient furnace isn’t being as efficient as it used to be? There are many common causes. For those with older home heating systems, a replacement may be necessary, but otherwise try these tips and tricks before you throw out your old system.