If you live in cold weather areas, heating costs can really eat up your budget. Everyone where I live is saying that this winter is going to be a cold one, so I'm looking for ways to save money on our heating bill. Here are a few that I have been able to think of: Close off rooms/areas that are not being used. If no one is in there, there's no need to heat that room/area, right? Close the doors and any heating vents in the room until it is needed. For example, guest rooms don't need to be heated unless you have guests. Make sure you won't lose heat through windows or doorways. Replace weather stripping or sealant on windows and doors to make sure cold air won't get in this winter. You may also want to cover window with plastic sheeting. Put on a sweater. Encourage family members to put on a sweater instead of turning the heat up if they are cold. What tips do you have for saving on heating costs?
I use the room radiators very occasionally, when it gets really very cold. Once the room is sufficiently warm, I turn the central heating off and make do with electric space heaters as a top-up. This has helped save on gas bills.
We do this a lot. We used to live in really old houses that were hard to heat and during harsh winters. We would actually shut off the entire upstairs. The kids' rooms would be up there, but we would just migrate down some clothes and toys, and only go up when we really needed to. That kept an entire level of the house from needing to be heated.
This is honestly the easiest thing to do. I never understood people who cranked up the heat, complained about it being cold, but walked around in their homes in shorts and a tank top. When I get home from work, I change into something very comfortable (unless I have plans to go somewhere else or have company come over): usually a comfy shirt/sweater and a pair of sweatpants. I wear slippers around the house because, honestly, I hate having cold feet - but I hate socks more! If the temperature is reasonable, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get warm and stay warm.
Sadly I can't shut thee doors to unused rooms as my dad has to know what is going on at all times, he is such a cynic that he believe if you close a door then someone will break into that room and murder us. The only thing I have found saves us money is by putting the heating on constantly but at a lower level. This saves us about £2 a day.
We have 5 electric radiators in the house, 1 in each bedrooms (2), 1 in each halls (2), and 1 in the living room. Actually we only use electric and no oils/gas. Anyway, our heating/radiators are always on timer. The one in our bedroom and by the hall near the bedroom and living room usually turns on just at 12mn and stops around 6 am in the morning. And the heat still stays or lasts the whole day. We also have a small heater in the living room that we can turn on if it's really cold during the day. The good thing is that our house is just 2 bedroom bungalow type so the heat can be confined more.
We always set the heating on into certain time of the day. I live in England and its never been hot in here so we set out heating system to turn on at 7am in the morning and turn off at 8 or 9 oclock in the evening. We also buy thick tog duvets to keep us warm at night. That saved us couple of pounds per month.
So you have your central heating on for 13-hours a day, you must have a huge bill for heating. We have our heating set to come on at night for a few hours to heat the house up and then we turn it off.
If you live above someone else, like say in an apartment building, you can save a ton of money in the winter months if they use their heat a lot. Heat rises, and insulation won't be able to keep all of it inside. And if your neighbors underneath you are at work or are just outside in general, you still have the option of turning your own heat on. I know quite a few people who used this penny-pinching method to great success.
The way my house is set up I can only close off 2 rooms in the winter. The one room it the entry room so it helps to close the door to keep the cold out. I keep my furnace at 58 degrees in the winter during the day and 65 when we are home & thru the night. I have a space heater for the big bathroom and my office as needed. I have a fireplace that I heat the house with when we are home. If I could get an insert to fit it I would because that would help. I put plastic on most of the windows, especially the north side of the house. The 2 doors we don't use get blankets over them to help with any drafts I might have missed. The south side of the house I leave blinds open to let the heat in during the day. My office window gets a blanket as well just because it is hard to get to for hanging plastic. I pull it up when I'm in there for light. I'm always looking for more ways to save or cut back on energy usage. The cost has gotten so out of control.
Don't forget about having to pay more to keep the water hot in supply lines, especially those lines that are exposed (unfinished basement, crawlspace, etc). I never gave much thought to insulating pipes until we had the need to rent a infrared camera less than two years ago when we decided to insulate with spray foam in the walls on the first floor of our Cape Cod. Before the week rental was up, I took various other pictures around the house. Almost as an after thought, I snipped off a short piece of pipe insulation and put it on a portion of exposed hot water supply line in the basement, then immediately took a picture with the IR camera. The results recorded with the camera really surprised me: The insulation used was the cheapest split foam insulation available at most big box stores, not the more expensive rubber. A six foot section of the less expensive stuff wasn't even two dollars per section. I'm sure the difference in temperatures would have been even more drastic had this been tested with the higher R value rated rubber insulation.
One other thing that you can do is to try and let sunlight in as much as possible in the winter. We don't get too many sunny days in the winter but when we do, that sunlight really warms up the house and it is free! The other thing we do is close off unused rooms, turn the heat way down at night and also turn it down when we will be gone for several hours. We are going to try and get an electric fireplace this fall so we can use the gas heat at lot less. The electricity is much more affordable where we live.
Additionally to your points you should never use a traditional fireplace for supplemental heating. Usually a fireplace will suck the heated air from your home in order to fuel the fire and exhaust it via your chimney which in turn makes the furnace to turn on to replace that warm air. You should also close the fireplace damper as well as properly sealing the opening shut when not in use. You need also to replace any broken window panels besides repairing large attic holes, basements and crawlspaces.
You should also replace or clean your furnace filters around once a month. Dirty filters can restrict airflow and this increases energy use. Make sure you regularly maintain your furnace. Furnaces that are kept lubricated, clean and properly adjusted may reduce energy use by 5%. You might also want to reduce your hot water temperature. If you lower it a few degrees it could save another 5% to 7% of your heating costs.
We put the plastic around our windows during the winter months. Our temperature is set on 65 during the day and on 62 at night. It is a programmed thermostat. If we are cold, we have a space heater in the room and wear sweaters. We have a vent on the dryer that lets the hot air out in the room, but it catches the lint. This is another great way to do two things at once, do laundry and heat the room.
There are some great tips on here. You might also try insulating around your foundation. If you can keep your floor warm, you have won half the battle already. You don't have to buy insulation either. You can do simple things like put your shredded mail in bags and maybe even use them for Halloween decorations around the foundation.
I try to get as much sunlight in during the day as possible, and I use insulated drapes that I close when the sun isn't shining, to help keep heat in. I put on a sweatshirt first rather than cranking up the heat, but I don't leave the heat too low. Do be careful not to let the heat stay so low as to make pipes freeze. I also wear slippers. When you're feet are cold, you feel colder all over. Snuggling is good too. Gather together on the couch under a blanket to snuggle up and watch TV. Close off drafts such as placing a rolled towel in front of an exterior door.
Do you happen to know how much you saved per month? I am thinking of using this suggestion this winter. When my kids are at school and my dh is at work I can just use a space heater and have it follow me around. I need to a buy space heater though so I guess we'll have to see how cost effective it really is. Thanks for any help!
My mom shuts down the heating when we leave the house (to work/to school) and when we go to sleep. Funny thing is, heating is included in the rent so she does not pay more or less money, but she's used to saving by habit, I guess!
