Throughout your busy year there are times when it is easy to overlook the simple and seemingly irrelevant tasks you should do! This is especially true when we enter the busy holiday season with a focus on gift shopping, spending time with family, and the new year! The tradition of New Year’s resolutions usually results in people vowing to frequent the gym more often, eat a little bit healthier, save more money, or learn a new skill. However, did you ever think performing some quick and simple projects can have a huge impact on the comfort of your home, and even save you some money!
1. Change your air filter
This resolution is a very quick and easy task that can greatly increase the comfort of your home and save you money in the process. All of that for a few minutes of work! Your home’s HVAC system uses an air filter to help cleanse the air that you breathe. This helps to keep several unwanted dust and bacteria out of your lungs! However, when you neglect your air filter for too long, it begins to clog up. Clogged up air filters allow unwanted dirty air to run through your home! You may even notice an increase in dust build up, along with a decrease in air quality.
Dirty clogged air filters not only decrease dirty air circulation; they also can reduce the efficiency of your heating or cooling system. Your HVAC system must work harder to circulate air through your home which means it takes longer to heat or cool your home, and in turn costs more money! Increasing the comfort of your home along with saving money is well worth the few minutes of work every so often.
2. Adjust your thermostat when no one is home
Adjusting your thermostat when no one is home is a fantastic way to save money and decrease wear on your HVAC system! When the last person leaves the house for the day, ensure that you adjust the thermostat to a less than comfortable temperature. There’s no reason to heat or cool a house that no one is in! If this becomes a regular practice, then this will save you tremendously throughout the year on your utilities. You also save yourself some wear and tear on your furnace or air conditioner, ensuring your home’s comfort for years to come!
3. Adjusting your thermostat beyond your desired temperature
Adjusting your thermostat above or below your desired temperature is not helpful! Your furnace or air conditioner don’t change the temperature in your house any quicker with a temperature that is beyond your ideal number. Your HVAC system simply has two settings, on or off! Your HVAC system doesn’t get hotter or colder based on the thermostat temperature. People commonly adjust their thermostat beyond their desired temperature, not realizing that all this achieves is forcing the system to run longer if or when you forget to change it to your desired temperature. If you change your routine to only setting the thermostat to your desired temperature you can save yourself a lot of money, and headaches!
4. Leaking and open windows!
Your HVAC system works best when your home is not letting any air move outside your home! Leaving windows open is the most obvious cause of you trying to heat or cool the outside world, however there can be other culprits as well. Ignoring the small leaks and drafts you have throughout your home is a huge mistake! These cause the air from your HVAC system to be pushed outside your home, forcing your system to work harder to achieve a comfortable temperature. Even when your desired temperature is achieved your system will kick back on again in short order because of your draft!
5. Thermostat placement
The location of your thermostat is usually not something you strongly think about in your everyday routine. However, if your thermostat is in a poorly placed location this can be the root cause of a lot of your HVAC issues! If your thermostat is placed on an outside wall, it can get colder/warmer quicker as it’s influenced by the outside weather. This can be an issue when trying to find that perfect temperature, but your HVAC just can’t quite achieve it! Placing your thermostat somewhere near hot appliances, air vents, or other household items that cause a change in temperature can cause issues as well!
6. Leaving exhaust fans on
Exhaust fans are fantastic at moving air from inside your house to the outside where it is less likely to bother you. However, once the offending air is displaced that should be when use of the fan is over. Forgetting to turn off your exhaust fans, or overuse of them can cost you greatly when trying to heat or cool your home! Moving your comfortable inside air to outside of your home only means it will be replaced by air at a less than ideal temperature. This will make your HVAC system work that much harder to try to keep your home comfortable. Don’t waste money by literally pushing your heat or air outside of your home!
7. Using your fireplace for heat
While the majority of the list is focused on things you can do year round to save money and stay comfortable, this is only useful during winter months but especially important in our holiday season! While your fireplace may provide a fantastic background and ambiance for your holiday celebration, it does not do a good job heating your home. While the fireplace is obviously hot, most of the warm air will run up through the chimney. Making matters worse, the chimney will also allow cold air to enter your home. Finally, when the fire burns it will use a lot of the warm air in your house being replaced by warm not heated air which will just make your furnace have to do more work to get the new air up to temperature!
8. Owning a backup generator
Owning a home backup generator is one of the most convenient things that you can purchase for your home! A standby generator can help to ensure that your home is nice and comfortable on the hottest or coldest days of the year, even if you lose power! Luck always seems to have it that when the weather is the most uncomfortable, your power decides to fail. Saturn Heating, Cooling, and Electrical can help you ensure that your heat or air conditioning keeps running with our Generac standby generator installation!
9. Closing vents in unused rooms
Many homeowners think that closing vents in rooms that aren’t being used is a great way to save money on your heating or air conditioning bill each month. However, that thought process is a little bit flawed! Closing vents in unused rooms can cause imbalances in airflow for other rooms throughout the house. This starts to create cold and warm spot issues causing a level of discomfort throughout the home. That room is not sealed off from the rest of the house after all, so the cold/warm air will find its way in through the gaps in the door anyway!
10. Calling a professional when needed
It may sound counterintuitive to suggest calling a professional in order to save money on your utilities throughout the year. However, if the problem you are having is beyond the scope of your skills calling a professional is the best thing you can do! A certified HVAC technician can identify the problems quickly and get your heating or air system back in top notch condition quickly. Calling a professional saves you a lot of money that would be spent on guessing the issue and servicing the wrong part of your HVAC system!
About Saturn Heating, Cooling, And Electrical
Saturn Heating, Cooling, And Electrical has been family owned and operated since 1992. We have installed and serviced over 1000 Generac automatic standby generators. We have expanded our electrical services to include EV’s (Electric Vehicles). We are a preferred installer for TESLA and other brands of EV manufacturers and EV Charging Stations. We are authorized dealers for American Standard, Trane and Aprilaire products