10 Tips to Lower Your Heating and Cooling Utility Bills
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Use a Programmable Thermostat, there are two types
- First Generation - basically just a timer that turns the heating and cooling system on and off, or changes the temperature set point at user set specific times. This allows you to save money by limiting the amount of energy used for heating or cooling when comfort demands are lower, say when the household is sleeping or nobody is home. This type of thermostat is less expensive than the next gen thermostats and will save about one dollar a day.
- Next Generation – with Artificail Intelligence. Next Gen Thermostats can save you up to 30% of your heating and cooling costs and do all the guess work for you. They actually learn how your heating and cooling system operates within 4 to 8 days after installation, and are able to adapt to changes in demand on the system, say because of differences in outside temperatures or variations in your routines. You can also temporarily override the programs you have set without having to completely reprogram the thermostat, say if you are home all day with a sick child or just want the house a little cooler or hotter temporarily.
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Perform Annual Maintenance on your heating and cooling system
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Upgrade Heating and/or cooling system to high efficiency replacement
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Change Filters Regularly
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Seal Leaky Air Ducts
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Seal Drafts
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Use Heat Exchanging Ventilator
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Upgrade Water Heater
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Insulate Water Heater
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Upgrade your Home Insulation
When it’s not kept in shape, even the best system can cost you. How much? Depending on how you heat and cool your home and the climate of the area you live in, clogged filters, dirty thermostats, sooty flues, leaky duct work and un-lubricated fan motors can reduce heating and cooling efficiency by up to 29 percent.
■ Adjusting combustion efficiency increased performance by as much as 12%
■ Changing the filters increased performance by an average of 7%
■ Cleaning coils and burners added 10% to system performance
■ Adjusting fan speed added 6% to system efficiency
As shown by a recent study conducted by the National Comfort Institute (NCI).
This is no doubt one of the more expensive investments, though it gives the laregest return, as well as greatly improving comfort, health, safety and warranty. Furnaces, Air Conditioners, and other heating and cooling equipment generally lose about one percent of efficiency per year, compounded by lost efficiency due to a lack of routine maintenance means there is great room for improvement in utility bill cost reduction.
Take for instance uprgading from a twenty year old seventy percent efficient furnace to a high efficiency gas furnace of ninety-five percent efficiency would give an average efficiency increase of fourty-five percent.
Remember the furnace has lost 1% efficiency per year, so at 20 years old it is at best a 45-55% percent efficient furnace. Upgrading to a High Efficient Furnace and/or other High Efficiency equipment like a Tankless Water Heater earns extra incentives like tax credits and rebates and manufacturer promotions, not to mention these types of equipment are much better for the environment.
Changing the filters increased performance by an average of 7%. This is average, clogged filters can cause much lower performance than this, to the point of danger and system failure. A choking furnace can overheat and suffer great harm and damage and become dangerous. Clean filters obviously return cleaner and healthier air to the occupants, as well as the heating and cooling equipment.
Inspect heating and cooling air duct vents frequently, at least everyother year, especially if you suspect un wanted animal presence around ductwork. Rogue animals frequently nest in or damage, even collapse HVAC air ducting. This among other casues to ductwork can cause numerable problems in a systems function and efficiency. Actually, heated/cooled air supplied to the living spaces must be balanced with the return air going back to the system for heating or cooling and filtering. Problems include efficiency loss from leaky ducting. Efficiency loss and equipment damage from clogged or obstructed ducting. There are signs that major problems might have happened to your ducting, but the best way to ensure best efficiency and function of your system, is visual inspection and sealing of leaks, and insulating ducting in non-heated or cooled spaces.
This could be on of the hardest things to fully complete, but then again fresh air is needed. Different States have different opinions on the neccessary amount of fresh air coming into a house every hour, and these opinions sometimes change drastically from State to State and year to year. The easiest and most obvious of draft locations to control is around the seals of Exterior Doors and Windows. Installing insluation strips around the doors is fairly easy, though bigger problems might lie beyond the molding. An easy test is to use a candle around seals, and even throughout the house to find signs of air movement and possible drafts. Fresh air must enter the house for healthy air, the solution for having plenty of fresh air without having to lose money heating or cooling it after coming in from outside is a Fresh Air Heat Exchanging Ventilator. Each manufacturer calls them something a little different, generally they are just called ventilators.
An HRV, or Heat Recovery Ventilator can save 75 percent or more of wasted energy on heating or cooling fresh air. As it pushes out stale air, it pulls in fresh air, and—with little or no mixing of the two air streams—it transfers the heat or chill from the outgoing air to the incoming supply. The fresh air arrives pre-heated or pre-cooled and, with some units, pre-humidified or dehumidified.
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