Free, Cheap & Easy Ways to Keep Make Your Home Warmer
Improving Home Heating Without Spending A Lot of Money
Sometimes our cold Kansas winters can really pack a punch. Fortunately, our furnaces are designed to keep your home warm and comfortable all season long. While they are the primary source for keeping your home heated all winter, it can come at a cost. If you are looking for ways to save money on heating your home, you are in luck.
Hanna Heating & Air Conditioning has provided complete home heating services to Wichita, Andover, Newton and surrounding communities for over 40 years. We can make sure your furnace is running well and safely to keep you warm all winter. We want homeowners to understand easy and simple ways they can help their furnace run well and last a long time.
Energy bills seem to be getting higher every year. A good working furnace is the best way to save money. Fortunately, there are other things you can do to make your house warm without having to crank up the heat. In fact, there are many cheap – or even free – ways that you can immediately make an impact on your energy costs.
We list the easiest and cheapest ways that make the biggest dent in energy use for most Kansas homes.
The 3 Easiest & Cheapest Ways to Save Money on your Heating Bill
1. Lower your thermostat setting while you sleep.
COST: free
DIFFICULTY: easy
CONSIDERATIONS: decrease in heat may impact your comfort
We start with the most impactful change you can make to save both money and energy. Your furnace uses a lot of energy to heat your home all winter long. It may sound unpleasant to lower your temperature during the coldest months of the year. However, most of us can acclimate to temperature change, especially just one degree difference.
Many will not even notice this change in temperature. After all, this lowered heat will be happening while you’re asleep and under some warm and cozy blankets. Consider bundling up with socks and warmer clothes when you go to bed.
How big is this impact? Lowering your temperature settings by just one degree for 8 hours each day can save you about 1% on your energy bill. If you lower your setting by 7 degrees, you could see a savings of as much as 10% of all your heating costs.
2. Change your ceiling fan setting
COST: free
DIFFICULTY: moderately easy (depending on how accessible the ceiling fans are for you)
Did you know that your ceiling fan should rotate in the opposite direction during the winter? In the summer, your fan should be turning counterclockwise. This fan direction pulls the warm air up. Switching your fan to turn clockwise will force the warm air to be pushed down.
3. Install weather stripping on your exterior doors and windows with gaps
COST: low cost
DIFFICULTY: moderately easy
CONSIDERATIONS: while not a difficult task, if this is your first-time applying weather stripping, it may take some time to learn how to do it and install the strips
You may be losing a lot of heat from your entry door or any other door that go to the outside or a cold space like a garage or basement. According to Evergy, the average home loses about $45-100 a year in heat loss!
This is a relatively easy task most homeowners can do. Look for adhesive backed weather stripping. If you have gaps in the corners of a door, a piece of door corner seal weather stripping that you trim to fit can easily close the gap. Either of these options can be purchased for under $10 at your local hardware store or big box store.
Saving Money by Combatting the Energy Hogs
These top 3 tips address the most common problems that a lot of homes across Kansas have. These issues are especially likely for older homes like you see in areas like Riverside and College Hill. However, there are some other problems that can cause a lot of energy loss to happen. You may want to look into some of these common problems that could be putting a drain on your wallet.
Dirty air filter. Changing your filter is an easy and low-cost task. If your filter is dirty or clogged, that can force your furnace to have to work harder to provide heat throughout your home. A dirty air filter can also cause serious problems with your HVAC system, including expensive breakdowns.
The thermostat fan is always on. There are many reasons why it is good to have the fan setting on your thermostat set to on. But the downside of that is the additional energy and expense that costs you.
You can experiment by turning your fan off and see if causes any issues with comfort or heat. You may find that you do not need it set to On, but instead on Auto. And that change can save you on your monthly energy bill.
Close your fireplace. If you have a real fireplace, you might be losing heat through it. Make sure you close the flue and damper when it is not in use.
Stop losing heat through your attic. If you do not have sufficient insulation in your attic, that may be a major energy hog in your home. Homes can lose a significant amount of heat through an attic. While there will be an initial cost to get an attic fully insulated, you will likely find some energy savings in your monthly bills.
Another problem you could have with your attic is that even if it is insulated, there are gaps. If you find open spaces, fill those in to keep the heat from getting out.
The Best Money Saving Tip for Heating a Home
While those 3 tips will help most Kansas homeowners get through another cold winter well, some may not be so lucky. An old or failing furnace is not just going to make your home uncomfortable, it will also cost you a lot of money and wasted energy.
Furnaces that need repair or replacement are often working much harder to try to get your home heated to your desired thermostat setting. This extra effort results in more energy use and therefore higher utility bills. Sometimes the most effective way to heat your home and reduce the costs to do it is by replacing an old heating system with a new, energy-efficient one.
Heating a Home in Kansas
If you are looking for help in keeping your furnace working well or considering upgrading to a better, more efficient system, call on Hanna! Our team has been professionally installing and servicing furnaces and other home heating systems for over 40 years.
Contact Hanna Heating & Air for a free quote on the installation of a new furnace or other heating system. We would be happy to walk you through your options in how you can get reliable home comfort for many years to come. Call us today at (316) 945-3481.
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