CALL US: (732) 391-4411
How to Heat Your Home for Less
As temperatures drop across the country, heating bills are skyrocketing. Whether you heat your home with natural gas, oil or electricity, rising utility bills are basically unavoidable. You don’t have to go broke, though; nor do you have to turn into an icicle in your own home. By following a few simple tips, you can see a reduction in your winter heating bills and stay warm at the same time:
Invest in a programmable thermostat
Set it up so that the house is kept cooler overnight (when you’re under blankets anyway) and when no one is home. If you can get the heat to click on about an hour before you wake up and again an hour before you and your family begin arriving home from work and school, you won’t notice the difference when you’re not around, but you’ll certainly notice it when your heating bill comes in.
Turn down the heat
Most families can tolerate the heat set at 68 degrees, or even a bit lower, during the day. If you’re currently setting it to above 72 degrees, try lowering it by one degree every day or two and see when people start to complain about being cold. You might be surprised that no one even notices until you’ve lowered it by three or four degrees.
Put on a sweater
Make this your mantra. When your family members start to complain about it being chilly, you know you can go down an additional degree if they’re not wearing sweaters. It’s what your mother told you and what her mother told her. This wisdom works! Make sure your kids are also wearing socks, as cold feet will make the whole body feel cold.
Close up any air leaks
First, close your fireplace damper; this is a huge hole leading outside your house, where warm air will happily rise and escape. Next, make sure that you aren’t leaving your bathroom fans on for any longer than necessary to remove some of the humidity from the air. After that, the fan will begin removing heat as well. Go around your home and check for air leaks around windows and doors. Doorstops and caulk can go a long way in saving heating dollars while keeping you warmer.
Winterize your windows
If you have storm windows, use them! If you don’t, and you don’t plan on buying them this year, go to the home improvement store and purchase plastic to cover the windows with. Your view will be a bit less clear, but your home will stay warmer and your utility bill, lower.
Add insulation
If you live in an older home, in particular, you might want to add some insulation to places like your attic and any crawl spaces. You can do this yourself or can call in the professionals to blow insulation into the walls. This step will cost you some money, but will pay for itself eventually, and you’ll be a lot more comfortable in the winter.
Staying warm is less of an ordeal now than it was 100 years ago when our great-grandparents were trying to keep their homes comfortable. With a bit of effort, you can not only keep your house toasty warm, but save money while doing so.
George obtained a Master of Science Engineering Degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology. After graduation, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies after the company split. With an extensive background in construction management and ergonomic space design, spanning residential and commercial, designing and installing closets in New Jersey is second nature for him.