Energy Saving Tips: - Heating

• Use programmable thermostats.
• Close draperies at night and on cloudy days and open them on sunny days.
• Use a sunny room as living space to read the paper or eat a meal on sunny, cold days. Upholstered furniture will soak up the heat when placed in a sunny spot.
• Install your storm doors and windows.
• Seal doors with draft-reducing weather-stripping and door sweeps.
• Lower your thermostat to 65 degrees Fahrenheit while you're away during the day.
• Make sure your thermostat is located in the room you spend the majority of your time in. You may then wish to close off dampers in other rooms that are not used as frequently and close the doors. In this way you are heating for the room that you spend most of your time in.
• Use more blankets in bed at night to keep your body warm enough without warming your whole home.
• Use an electric sheet or blanket. Turn it on for 10-15 minutes before going to bed to warm it up. Turn it off when you get into bed.
• Dress warmly. Wear layers of clothing. This insulates the air trapped between the layers.
• Lower the water heater thermostats to the lowest level that meets your hot water needs (midway between the "low" and "medium" settings on many units). Each decrease of 10 Fahrenheit degrees saves five percent on water heating costs.
• Clean or replace filters on furnaces once a month or as needed.
• Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed; make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting, or drapes.
• Bleed trapped air from hot-water radiators once or twice a season; if in doubt about how to perform this task, call a professional.
• Place heat-resistant radiator reflectors between exterior walls and the radiators.
• During the heating season, close any unoccupied rooms that are isolated from the rest of the house, and turn down the thermostat or turn off the heating for that room or zone. However, do not turn the heating off if it adversely affects the rest of your system. For example, if you heat your house with a heat pump, do not close the vents, this could harm the heat pump.
• Select energy-efficient equipment when buying new heating equipment. Your contractor should be able to provide you with energy fact sheets for different types, models, and designs to help you compare energy usage.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR® labels. ENERGY STAR® is a program to help consumers identify energy-efficient appliances and products.
• Open your windows to air out your house occasionally, otherwise moist, humid air is trapped within which takes more energy to heat than cool, fresh air.

• Do not set back the heat pump's thermostat manually if it causes the electric resistance heating to turn on. This type of heating, which is often used as a backup to the heat pump, is more expensive.

• Keep all south-facing glass is clean.
• Make sure that objects do not block the sunlight shining on concrete slab floors or heat-absorbing walls.
• Consider using insulating curtains to reduce excessive heat loss from large windows at night.

• If you use a gas fireplace in a room you spend a lot of time in, consider locating your furnace thermostat in this room since it will likely be the warmest room of the house.
• If you never use your fireplace, plug and seal the chimney flue.
• Keep your fireplace damper closed unless a fire is going. Keeping the damper open is like keeping a 48-inch window wide open during the winter; it allows warm air to go right up the chimney.
• When you use the fireplace, reduce heat loss by opening dampers in the bottom of the firebox (if provided) or open the nearest window slightly-approximately 1 inch-and close doors leading into the room. Lower the thermostat setting to between 50 and 55 degrees F.
• Install tempered glass doors and a heat-air exchange system that blows warmed air back into the room.
• Check the seal on the flue damper and make it as snug as possible.
• Add caulking around the fireplace hearth.
• Use grates made of C-shaped metal tubes to draw cool room air into the fireplace and circulate warm air back into the house.

• Use zone heating in areas of the home where you spend most of your time (such as the downstairs), by using an approved and properly installed space heater. Close the unoccupied rooms that are isolated from the warm zone and turn down the house's central heating system to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. However, do not close off rooms so tightly that you prevent air from reaching gas-fueled water heaters, furnaces, ranges or other gas-fueled appliances. This could create an unsafe build-up of carbon monoxide that can be fatal. You need to ensure those appliances are exposed to adequate air circulation.
• Make sure the unused space gets enough heat in winter to prevent plaster from cracking or pipes from freezing.
• Most of the air supply registered on a heat pump system should remain at least partially open to avoid damage.

back to top