Keep Your House Cozy with Small Improvements

Once the long hot days of summer are over and you start to feel the nip of fall in the air, it”s time to start thinking about ways to conserve energy when the air turns colder and you need to start heating your home. Whether your budget is big or small, you should consider making a few improvements to your home to save money this winter on your energy bills.

“Zone” Your Home

If you live in a multi-story home, it”s a good investment to heat each floor individually with separate heating units. You can save money by only heating the floors that are being occupied instead of using one unit to heat every square foot of the house. It will cut down on how long your unit runs, too, preventing unnecessary wear and tear on your furnace.

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Upgrade Your Thermostat

Getting a programmable thermostat can go a long way towards cutting your bill. There”s no point in heating your house to a toasty 74 degrees when it”s empty all day. In the rush of the morning, who can remember to drop the temperature down five or ten degrees? A programmable thermostat will automatically know that at 8 am, it needs to tone down the heating and kick it back on at 6 pm when everyone is arriving home.

Quick Fixes

There are a few simple things you can do for minimal or no money to keep your house warm without sacrificing your bank account to your utility company. Much like you close the blinds during the day in the heat of summer, keep the blinds open during the winter to let the sun in. Shut them tightly at dusk–curtains are a good insulator–to ward off the cold that will come creeping into the windows. Replace all of the weather stripping around the doors and re-caulk the interior and exterior of all of your windows for extra protection. If you”re so inclined, you can choose to heat the rooms you spend the most time in (the family room, for example) with a space heater so you can drop the thermostat a bit for the rest of the house. You may also want to get your windows and even roof inspected by a team like Yorktown NY roofing to look for and drafts that maybe coming into your home.

Upgrade to a Heat Transfer System

According this site, heat transfer basically amplifies your fireplace”s ability to heat your house by spreading the heat throughout the entire dwelling. Your fireplace may rock at heating the living room, but the heat doesn”t go much farther than the room it occupies. Small fans placed throughout the house push the heat outwards, spreading it throughout your house quietly and efficiently. Since heat rises, it will also push any heat down that”s escaping into the attic space and send it back down into the house where it can do its job.

Once your house has had the proper repairs and maintenance done, your house can stay snug and cozy without breaking the bank. Get a head start before the mercury drops and ensure a smaller utility bill this winter.