Staying warm inside in Southwest Ohio during the winter can be costly, but you can realize energy savings by completing some easy steps that help reduce your overall utility bill. Some steps cost nothing more than time, while others cost little but have significant payback all year long.
- Replace or clean your furnace’s filter. A dirty filter slows the passage of air through your ductwork, making your furnace work harder and hastening wear and tear. Create a reminder so that you check it monthly.
- Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees. Not only does this provide energy savings, it also increases the life of the water heater since fewer sediments accumulate inside it, which reduces its efficiency. Consider wrapping your water heater with an insulating blanket to cut down on standby losses. You can also insulate the pipes near the water heater to reduce heat loss.
- Run your kitchen and bathroom fans conservatively. These fans exhaust conditioned air from your home. You can also install timers on the fans inside your home so that they turn off automatically should someone forget to turn them off.
- Use the sun when it’s shining to add passive solar heating to rooms with south- and west-facing windows. Close the drapes tightly at night to retain more heat in your home.
- Use your dishwasher and washing machine only when you have full loads. A dishwasher uses the same amount of water no matter how full it is. While washers have settings for the water level, the appliances use the same amount of electricity regardless of how big the load is.
- Increase the insulation in your attic. Not only does this translate to energy savings in the winter, it helps moderate temperatures in the summer.
- Inspect the ductwork in your home. Even small leaks in the ducts account for substantial energy loss throughout the heating and cooling season.
Ace Hardware Home Servicesserves the Dayton area and can help you achieve more energy savings by servicing your heating system annually and answering any questions about increasing your home’s energy efficiency.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about energy savings and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Ace Hardware Home Services services the Ohio’s Miami Valley. Visit our website to see our special offers and get started today!
Energy savings photo via Shutterstock
