Heating and Air: Saving Money on Your Monthly Bills

Unless you are fortunate enough to live in an area where the weather stays a crisp, cool 70 degrees year round, heating and air are probably two of the most important luxuries in your life. While almost necessary, it can be expensive to run these luxuries every month. That cool air conditioning stops feeling so good when you open the bill and see how much you have to spend. Fret not! There are things you can put into play that will reduce your bills. You can enjoy a well-adjusted climate without going broke. Here’s how.

Programmable Thermostat
One of the easiest ways to overspend on your heating and air is to run the system full blast when you’re away at work. At the same time, simply shutting the system off when you leave isn’t a great idea, either. Your system works far harder to bring your home up or down a degree than it does to simply keep it at a stable temperature. Many people have also found success in setting the temperature a bit higher than they would find comfortable to go to sleep so that it changes when they are already asleep and won’t notice it. This also helps on chilly mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed. Set the heater to come on an hour or so before your alarm goes off.

Get Insulated
If you have no insulation in your attic, it’s one of the best investments you can make. A house without insulation is wasting much of their heating and air, allowing it to simply flow right out the roof. This doesn’t even speak to the additional heat and cold from outside you’re letting in through this significant breach. If you’re the type of person who tends to yell at the kids for leaving the front door open, you’re essentially complaining about rain while swimming in the ocean. Call out an insulation company, have them install it, and you’ll be saving money right away.

Close Off Vents
If you have rooms that no one in your family uses on a frequent basis, you might think about closing off the vents to those rooms. This will redirect more heating and air to the rooms where you do need them and probably let you run the system far less frequently. If you have guests coming over and need to use the room, you can always open them back up.