![\"young-woman-shivers-in-sweater\"](\"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/woman-cold-in-sweater-300x200.jpg\")
Even people who like winter more than any other season don\u2019t like seeing utility bills start rising as the temperature begins dropping. It\u2019s true you can\u2019t avoid paying higher energy costs during the winter because of all the work your home\u2019s central heating system must put in (and the water heater does more work as well). However, you can cut down on those costs with some basic steps.<\/p>\n
Below we\u2019ll share five ways you can save heating energy this coming winter\u2014and of course they work every winter!<\/p>\n
Always, always, always arrange for a professional maintenance inspection and tune-up for your heater. No matter if you have a furnace or a heat pump, the central heating system needs to have a licensed technician examine it and take care of basic cleaning and adjusting jobs. This is no different than a tune-up for your car\u2014you need to have it done or you\u2019ll end up wasting money. A tuned-up heating system will run from 5% to 25% more energy efficiently, and that means lower heating bills.<\/p>\n
We know how tempting it is to turn the thermostat up as high as possible when it gets cold. But this is an inefficient way of heating a house. You want to have the thermostat set as low as is comfortable. This way the house loses heat to the outside slower, and the heater will need to run less often. We advise (as does the department of energy) to keep the thermostat set around 68\u00b0F during the day when people are home. You can further lower it at night when the household is asleep. Each degree lower can mean 2% off your heating costs.<\/p>\n
If you read the above advice and thought 68\u00b0F sounds a bit too cold for the indoors, then add an extra layer of clothing. When it\u2019s sweater weather, put on a sweater! This is the easiest way to allow you to give the heater a break.<\/p>\n
Cold weather often comes with dry conditions. The less humidity is in the air, the colder people feel. This is because the lack of moisture allows heat to escape from the human body faster. Call us for an installation of a whole-house humidifier to properly balance humidity levels. Raising relative indoor humidity from below 30% to around 45% will make your house feel 8\u00b0F warmer on average\u2014and that means less stress for the heater.<\/p>\n
A clogged air filter for the furnace or heat pump is one of the most basic reasons for higher heating bills. And it\u2019s so simple to fix! Change the filter every one to three months (check monthly to see how often it needs to be changed) and you\u2019ll avoid spikes in heating costs.<\/p>\n
For the best heating in Burton, MI<\/a>, let our professionals see to your needs. We have more than 15 years of history helping homes in the area enjoy quality comfort and energy efficiency. Get started with a call to set up a heating maintenance tune-up and inspection.<\/p>\n Below we\u2019ll share five ways you can save heating energy this coming winter\u2014and of course they work every winter!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[121,49,112],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heating-service","tag-burton","tag-heating-system-maintenance","tag-heating-tips"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Rely on First Choice Heating & Cooling<\/a> for all your coming winter heating needs. If your home had a voice, it would call First Choice!<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"