Do you know?
•44% - 50% of your utility costs come from heating and cooling your home?
•It costs more money to heat and cool your home than any other function in your home?
Try these helpful energy saving tips:
•Insist on regular maintenance checks on heating and cooling systems.
•Consider upgrading to a more efficient heating and/or air conditioning unit.
•Combining proper equipment maintenance and upgrades with appropriate insulation, weatherization and thermostat setting can reduce your energy bills by 50%.
•Keep in mind that an energy efficient furnace alone will not have as great an impact on your energy bills as using an approach that involves adjustments throughout the entire house.
•Set your thermostat as low as possible for your comfort.
•Clean or replace furnace filters each month.
•Clean baseboard heaters, warm-air registers and radiators as needed; Make sure they are not being blocked by draperies, carpeting or furniture.
•Use kitchen, bath and other ventilating fans wisely. These fans can pull out a houseful of warm air in just one hour!
•Take advantage of "passive solar" by opening draperies and blinds on the south side of your home. The sun will assist in warming your home - free of charge! Be sure you close them at night to keep the heat in.
•Close any unoccupied rooms that are isolated from the rest of the house and close the heat/cooling vents if possible.
Improve your home’s energy efficiency!
Take a Holistic Approach to Total Home Energy Conversation
To achieve the maximum in total home comfort and energy savings, McElroy’s recommends that you step back and evaluate your entire home. Your total home comfort and efficiency is the result of many systems, such as: heating, cooling, lighting, electrical and plumbing. Combine these factors with the size, age, physical features and the location of your home that combine to produce the total energy efficiency within your home. Remember, replacing or upgrading just one of the many elements that contribute to your comfort may help improve it, however it is the complete picture that will ultimately save you the most money and provide you the maximum comfort throughout your home.
Conduct a Home Energy Audit
Conducting a home energy audit will allow you to take much more into consideration than just your heating and cooling systems. It will give you a benchmark from which to make decision and measure your energy saving progress.
Your audit should include checking:
Quantity and condition of the insulation in walls, floors and attic
Vapor barriers in walls
Quality of windows - single or double pane? Cracks? Old weatherstripping?
Heat loss around doors and windows - Weatherstripping? Proper fit?
Quality of insulation in doors - Hollow or Solid?
Integrity of ductwork - leaks?
Use of passive solar energy - open those blinds!
Use of drapes and other window coverings to prevent heat loss - keep heat in by closing them at night.
Efficiency of heating and cooling systems - check filters, clean vents, etc.
Follow the WADLOT Rule - WArm Dress LOwer Temperature
Do you know that it takes significantly more energy to raise the temperature in your home from 68 to 70 degrees than it does to raise it from 66 to 68 degrees? Rather than raising the thermostat, try dressing warmer and allow your own body heat keep you comfortable. You can cut your energy costs by 10%-25% just by lowering the thermostat at night and when nobody is home. McElroy’s recommends setting your thermostat no higher than 65 degrees during the daytime and dropping it down between 55 and 60 degrees at night. Compensate with a sweater or extra blanket and you will never know the difference - until your lower utility bills begin arriving! Of-course, you should always consider the age and health of family members before deciding how low to set your thermostat.
Consider Using a Digital Setback Thermostat
Automate your WALDOT compliance with a new digital thermostat. This convenient new technology eliminates the necessity of remembering to turn dow the heat at night or at other times when you know nobody is home. You just program the thermostat to"set back" the appropriate times and forget it.
Other features to look for in your thermostat are:
Multiple daily settings
Override or hold
Advanced recovery
Always look for the "Energy Star" logo on your thermostat. This symbol indicates that the product has been recognized by the EPA as an energy efficient product.
Check the Seals Around Doors and Windows
We know - this is pretty obvious, but when was the last time YOU check the caulk around your windows? If you live in an older home, this material can harden and crack with age. Periodically it needs to be repaired or chipped away and replaced. This is an easy, low cost maintenance task that can make a significant difference in the energy efficiency of your home. Exterior doors should fit snugly and have appropriate weather stripping to avoid heat loss and drafts. A storm door will also help prevent the loss of warm or cool air from your home.
Make Sure there are No Leaks in the Air Ducts
It may surprise you to learn that a single leak in an air duct can cost you up to 25% of the efficency of your home heating or cooling system. Over time, ductwork can shift and settle in a home. Seals between the lengths of ducting can become cracked or broken and leaks can develop. This is especially true in homes that are more than 10 years old. Don’t let these seemingly small problems cause you a large utility bill!
Have Your Heating System Maintained Regularly
Regular system maintenance is the single most important thing you can do to avoid major problems and repairs. Keep your furnace running at peak efficiency and add years to its useful life. However, don’t be too eager to accept a simple "clean and check" from service companies. This service is often inexpensive, but it is also superficial because too often it is not thorough enough to find flaws that could potentially cause trouble down the road. Insist on an in-depth system tune-up at least once each year. Shafer Services offers a program that ensures that your system is running efficiently and is free of any mechanical weaknesses or flaw that could cause a breakdown or premature failure of your system. The service is GUARANTEED!
Consider Replacing Older Equipment with High Efficiency Systems
If your current system is more than 10 years old, you can SAVE A LOT OF MONEY by replacing your system with a new, high-efficiency unit. With the skyrocketing costs of fuel and electricity, the savings in your utility bills could literally offset the cost of new equipment. Many states and municipalities are offering rebate incentives to consumers for updating to the newer, energy saving units. If you would like to learn more about how your current system compares to a newer unit, McElroy’s offers a FREE home comfort analysis. One of our specialists will evaluate your home’s comfort system and provide a full set of options along with a written estimate of replacement and installations costs (if it’s necessary to replace your existing system). We will also provide you with your projected energy savings with a new system.
Augment Your Energy Savings with a Heat Pump
Do you know that you can ADD more equipment AND SAVE money as a result? If you use electricity to heat your home, a heat pump system may do just that! Heat pumps are more efficient than conventional heating systems. In- fact, of all the conventional heating systems available today, heat pumps alone can return more energy than they consume. This is possible because heat pumps use energy to transfer heat and intensify it, rather than create it. A heat pump is basically a refrigerator. It uses energy only to run the fan and the compressor. A heat pump can trim the amount of electricity you use for heating by 30% - 40%. Heat pumps are the most efficient from of electric heating in moderate climates and they return three times the amount of electrical energy they consume just with the amount of heat they produce.
There are three types of heat pumps:
Air-to-Air
Water Source
Ground Source
In a nutshell, a heat pump collects heat from the air, water or ground outside your home and uses it for concentrated heat on the inside. Not only can heat pumps save you money while heating your home, they can also double as central air conditioning units. They can cool your home by effectively collecting the heat inside your house and pumping it outside.
Heat Pump Tips:
To prevent unnecessary expenses, do not set back the heat pump’s thermostat manually if it causes the electric resistance heating to come on. This type of heating, often used as a backup to the heat pump, is more costly.
Maintain the system according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Clean or change the filters each month.
General Energy Saving Tips for Your Home Cooling System:
•Use House Fans
Fans help cool your home by circulating cool air throughout the house. They are most effective when the outside air temperature is cooler than the inside air and when they are operated at night. An attic fan can "blow away" hot air that accumulates in the attic. This goes a long way in helping with the efficiency of your air conditioning system.
•Set Your Thermostat as High as Possible
By maintaining a minimum difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures, you’ll lower overall cooling expenses.
•Don’t Reduce Your Thermostat Setting to Compensate for Extreme Outdoor Temperatures
For example, if you experience hotter than normal outdoor temperatures, do not try to compensate by turning your air conditioner thermostat down to 50 degrees. Rather, it is more cost effective and acts just as quickly if you leave it at the normal setting.
•Keep Lamps and TVs Away from Your Air Conditioning Thermostat
Appliances such as lamps and TVs radiate heat - thus affecting the accuracy of the thermostat’s ability to read the actual indoor air temperature.
•Shade Air Conditioning Units
Planting trees or shrubs around your air conditioning unit can save you money, however be sure to not block the airflow. A unit operating in the shade uses up to 10% less electricity than one operating in the sun.
•Close Shades and Blinds
Closing window treatments on all sides of your home ,except on the north side, can dramatically decrease the electricity it takes to efficiently cool your home. You can open window treatments during the early morning and late evening hours when the sun is not at its peak.
•Shut the Air Conditioner Off and/or Close Vents in Unoccupied Rooms
You can use a programmable thermostat to turn the air off and on automatically when you know normally unoccupied rooms will be occupied.
•Make Sure Your Air Conditioning Unit is Properly Sized
Bigger is not necessarily better. A larger air conditioning unit will not necessarily make you feel more comfortable during the hot summer months. In addition, it will most likely perform LESS efficiently and LESS effectively than a smaller, properly sized unit.
•Single Room Units
Single room units operate more efficiently if they run for long periods of time as opposed to being switched off and on. The longer running time an air conditioner is allowed to maintain, the easier it is for the unit to hold a more constant air temperature. It also allows air conditioning units to remove more moisture from the air which reduces humidity and increases the comfort level in the room.
•Check Specifications Carefully when Choosing the Right Air Conditioning Unit
Both single room units and central air conditioning units require proper sizing. McElroy’s professionals can help you determine the size of unit necessary to cool your home the most efficiently and effectively.
•Do Not Use the Air Conditioning System Fan to Circulate Air
Instead, use self-standing fans, such as ceiling and osculating fans to circulate the air in your home.
•Double Check the Fan Settings
Make sure the fan of your central air system is set to shut off at the same time as your cooling unit (compressor).
•Use an Air Conditioner with a High Efficiency Rating
Select a central air conditioning system that has a Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating (SEER) of 14 or above.