6 Great Ways to Reduce Your Heating Bill
If you live in an area where you’ve experienced bone-chilling wind gusts, snowy blizzards, or freezing rain, then you’ve inevitably also battled high heating bills. In fact, if you live anywhere that has temperatures that fall below 60 degrees, you probably have an annual heating bill.
These bills can be astronomical if they’re not managed properly and many times they catch you off guard.
While disheartening, these bills also provide a huge opportunity to save yourself lots of money just by making small adjustments.
Read below to find 6 great ways to reduce your heating bill:
1. Turn down the heat.
The first thing to do is also the most obvious – turn down your thermostat. By turning your set temperature down by even just one degree you will be lowering your monthly bill.
According to the Department of Energy, you can save up to 3% of your heating bill for each degree you turn your thermostat down.
Those dollars can really add up over the long winter months. By throwing an extra blanket on the bed you may be able to comfortably turn your thermostat down 3 or 4 degrees every night.
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2. Install more insulation.
It is amazing how much heat is lost due to poor insulation. Even if you are not a handyman, there are some simple steps that can be taken to make quick upgrades to whatever insulation you may or may not have.
If you’ve got an attic, make sure the roof is lined with the proper insulation. A quick snapshot on your smartphone and discussion with a hardware store employee can answer that in seconds.
The same can be said if you have a crawl space. Your can lose just as much heat from the bottom of your house as the top, but this area is often overlooked.
3. Make use of a digital thermostat.
If you do not have a digital thermostat, it is time to make the $100 investment. Make sure you get one that will automatically set the temperature for you and it will be well worth the money.
When you are gone during the day, make sure the temperature is set to drop. The same should happen during the nighttime if you like to cozy up under the covers. You would be amazed how much energy you will save by forgoing heating the house when you’re not in it.
4. Invest in a high efficiency furnace.
This can be a pricey upgrade, but it will dramatically reduce your monthly heating bill. The key is to upgrade your furnace to a high efficiency model when it’s time to upgrade anyways. That way, you are only spending a little more than you would have anyways.
The money you will save each month will more than make up for the extra cost. As an added bonus, high efficiency furnaces will increase the value of your home which can put even more money in your pocket.
5. Close doors and vents in areas you don’t use.
This is an easy adjustment once you decide what areas you want to block off. If you’ve got a basement, office, or guest bedroom that you rarely use, then keep the door and vents closed during the winter.
This will prevent heat from going into those rooms which can save you a lot of money. Even for the rooms you do use, keeping the doors closed will help to keep the heat in place, preventing it from escaping into hallways, foyers, or other areas that really don’t need to be heated.
6. Fix weather stripping and door jams.
If you’ve ever sat by a window and felt a little chilly then you know you’ve got a source of heat loss. If the cold can come in, then the heat can definitely seep out.
Make sure that all of your windows have up-to-date and high quality weather stripping so that your heat isn’t constantly leaking out of the house. Also make sure to check that your doors are properly sealing when you close them. A tiny gap in between the door and wall can be very costly for your heating bill.
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Braving the cold is hard enough. There is no reason that it also has to be costly. By making small adjustments, you can dramatically reduce your energy bill, putting extra money in your pocket.
A few extra pieces of weather stripping won’t just keep you warm, it might give you the extra cash you need to head to warmer weather when winter hits.
