When you’re talking about lowering your heating bills, you’re talking about efficiency. Efficient home heating systems save you money, plain and simple, but there’s more to your system than just the heater. Here are a few of the things that can affect your energy bill, along with a few recommendations to keep those energy numbers low.
Auxiliary Aspects. The heater makes the heat, but without the rest of the system, that heat would just sit there. Complete home heating systems rely on ducts, vents, and grates to get the warm air where it needs to go. They are the pathways of the system, and those pathways have to kept clean, sealed, and insulated in order for the system to work at peak efficiency. Same with your water heater: it doesn’t matter whether you have a gas water heater or an electric water heater — if your pipes are bleeding heat, you’re wasting energy.
Age of Your Unit. Once you know your auxiliary system is shipshape, then you can turn your attention to the heating unit itself. The older a unit, the more inherently inefficient it is, even if it’s as young as five years old. Some minor issues can be fixed easily and cheaply, but even without a major repair (which will be inevitable after a certain point), those little repairs can add up quickly. Always stack the cost of total repairs against the cost of a brand new unit, so you have some perspective.
Things You Can’t Control. Like it or not, there are some factors that have very little to do with the efficiency or quality of home heating systems, but that still can have a huge effect on a homeowner’s energy bill. The price of fuel (oil and natural gas, as well as the coal that generates the majority of electricity) can fluctuate wildly within a season. And unseasonable weather can affect both the price of fuel and how much you use your heating system, which can end up as a double-whammy to your bill.
Have you found any creative ways to cut your energy bills or increase the efficiency of your home heating system? Feel free to share them in the comments below. Find out more about this topic here: climatepartners.com