Angie's List gives tips to cut heating costs
I picked this up in my inbox today and thought I'd pass along these tips from Angie's List for any of you who, like me, might be on a budget:
1. Turn your thermostat down to 65 degrees during the day. Go lower at night, if you can - but don't turn off the heat if it's going to be less than 45 degrees outside.
2. Change your furnace filter whenever you pay a gas bill. The cleaner your filter is, the more efficient your furnace will be.
3. Set your water heater at 120 degrees for the greatest possible efficiency.
4. Wrap your water heater in an insulating blanket. Do the same for the first six feet of your hot-water pipe and the first three feet of your cold-water pipe. This will keep heat from escaping.
5. Close your fireplace flue when you don't have a fire going.
6. Caulk, seal and weather-strip areas where drafts come in. Angie's List recommends walking through your house with a lit stick of incense to see where air leaks are. Check out dropped ceilings, recessed lighting, attic entrances, sill plates, water and furnace flues, ducts, window and door frames, chimney flashing, electric outlets and switch-plates and plumbing.
7. Make sure there's enough insulation in your attic, ceilings, walls, floors and any crawl spaces.
8. Keep natural-gas appliances in prime shape.
9. Don't block heat registers and air returns with furniture, curtains or rugs.
10. A new furnace might be a good idea if yours is more than 10 years old. Most furnaces of that age are 60-percent to 70-percent efficient, and Angie's says you lose about 45 cents of each dollar you spend on home heating using them. Many new furnaces are 80-percent efficient or better. If you're purchasing a new appliance, check out the possible tax benefits you can get for buying heating equipment that meets certain federal and state standards.
11. Open your blinds and curtains during the day and close them at night.
12. Put on a sweatshirt instead of cranking up the heat when you're chilly.
13. Your house will feel warmer if you use a humidifier to keep the air at about 40-percent humidity.
14. Take quick showers and only do a dishes and laundry when you have enough for a full load.
15. Close heat registers in unused rooms and shut the doors.
16. Use ventilation fans sparingly when it's cold.
17. If you have a ceiling fan, change its direction to counter-clockwise to force rising warm air back down toward the floor.
18. Replace single-pane windows with double-pane windows.
19. Fix leaky hot-water faucets right away. Angie's says a leaky hot-water faucet losing one drop each second wastes 160 gallons of water per month - about 16 hot baths worth.
20. Close doors to closets and cabinets on outside walls.
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