The world outside may be carpeted in a blanket of white, but inside your home, your green ambitions live on. Heating and cooling makes up approximately 40 percent of residential energy use, so heating season offers the perfect opportunity to cut back on your fuel consumption. During the winter, when the heat is on full blast, a few small inefficiencies in your home’s sealing or heating equipment can add up to big-time waste—and wasted heat is bad news for the environment. Here’s how to get your home’s heat greener this winter, and reduce your utility bills in the process!
Get Your Existing HVAC System in Tip-Top Shape
First thing’s first: a heating system only works as well as the sum of its parts. So if you have clogged filters or dusty burners, your furnace’s performance may be massively reduced. If it’s been over two or three months since you last changed your air filters, get some replacements up, fast. It’s going to be a long winter, and you don’t want to be breathing in last season’s dirt and dust until the spring thaw. Plus, it improves the efficiency of your heating by up to 15 percent—and lengthens the lifespan of your unit, as well. Your furnace itself can use a little wintertime TLC, too. For instance, certain furnaces require annual lubrication at the furnace motor, which you can do by adding a few drops of non-detergent motor oil to the oil ports. You may also want to think about dusting your system’s burners, as well. Keep your system operating at peak performance and you’ll be surprised how much less energy you use.
Give Your Thermostat an Automated Update
One of the most effective ways to make your home heating a little greener is to use less of it—especially by turning your thermostat down when you’re not at home. In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that you can shave off 10 percent of your energy costs by setting your thermostat down seven to ten degrees for at least eight hours a day. Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially if you’re rushing out the door to get to work on time. A programmable thermostat, like a Nest, ecobee, or Honeywell Lyric, does the hard work for you—and it can even be controlled remotely so you can manage your settings when you’re out of town, too.
Look for Air Leaks and Drafts
A drafty window or a leaking duct can quickly sabotage your attempts to conserve energy. If all your heating is literally going out the window, your system is going to have to work a whole lot harder to maintain a comfortable temperature, adding up to—you guessed it—more energy consumed. Re-caulking cracked window seals with silicone sealant, installing foam weatherstripping, and inspecting your HVAC ducts for damaged parts will help you avoid these excesses. In fact, if you’re really invested, you can have an HVAC profession perform an official energy audit. That way, you’ll know every nook and cranny has been thoroughly checked.
Don’t Touch that Dial! Use Your Heating System Properly
What’s the first thing you do when you come into a cold house? Hopefully you’re not jamming the thermostat up to 85 degrees, because your home won’t heat up any faster. A thermostat simply maintains the temperature on the dial. A more likely consequence will be that you forget that it’s turned up all the way until you start getting too hot, at which point you’ll be wasting money and energy.
Trade Inefficient Space Heaters for Greener Models
Are you using a space heater to supplement your HVAC system this year? If you aren’t careful, you could rack up a ton of electricity bills without even thinking about it. Your standard space heater is fairly energy inefficient, but a ceramic convection heater is able to achieve much higher energy performance due to its more efficient design. Instead of simply radiating heat outwards, these models blow air across superheated plates. The fan in the system makes it much more effective at moving heated air outwards where you need it, and it’s somewhat safer, too. Less wasteful and more secure? That’s one idea I think we can all get behind!
About the Writer
Erin Vaughan is a blogger, gardener and aspiring homeowner. She currently resides in Austin, TX where she writes full time for Modernize, with the goal of empowering homeowners with the expert guidance and educational tools they need to take on big home projects with confidence.
