Lower Your Heating Bill, Part II

This is the second installation of how to lower your heating bills. For Part I, click here. So, is it still frigid where you live? I know that where I live, the coldest months are January and February. December actually isn't bad at all, even though I would like a white Christmas once in a while! Okay, here are some more tips and tricks to keep warm and save fuel.

3. Take advantage of passive solar heating, written about in my previous post. You must get some sun during the day, right? I guess you would unless you live in a really northern place that gets darkness for six months or something.

4. According the article "Keeping Warm for Less" in This Old House, make sure to keep furniture and other items from blocking heating vents. For example, a couch, drawer, or bed could be disrupting the flow of warm air in your home.

5. The same article tells you to change your furnace filter. Apparently, this move can not only lower the levels of dust in your home, but also save energy costs up to 5%. The filters don't cost very much and only have to be changed once a month.

6. Get one of these. Haha, just kidding, but anything you can do to keep yourself warm is great! Sweaters, blankets, hot tea...I find that a cup of hot tea in the morning really does the trick. It really doesn't make sense to wear a t-shirt while cranking up the heat to 75 degrees, but I know people that do it!

7. Close the fireplace damper. You don't want all the cold air coming down the chimney and into your home, do you? Likewise, you don't want all your costly warm air to escape through the fireplace.

This image is from Falcon Ridge Farms.

Lower Your Heating Bill, Part I

It's been a cold winter so far. I've heard of places in the Midwest that have gone under -30 degrees. Gosh, that makes me shiver just to think of it! Frigid temperatures usually mean higher heating bills and more fuel used. However, there are some tips for how you can cut down your energy bills.

1. Insulate! Many homes, especially old ones, have lots of little cracks all over the place. I know in my house, the freezing wind can seep through spaces between the door and the wall and the windows. You can purchase a "door snake" to stuff in front of the crack, or put in a "door sweep" underneath the door to minimize the extra space. Other ways to easily insulate include drawing curtains over windows and not leaving doors open for too long.











2. Install a programmable thermostat. The article "Keeping Warm for Less" from This Old House recommends using this thermostat to set temperatures for different times of the day. This saves money because you can lower temps when you are not home or when you are sleeping. This can save 10-20% of your heating bill. According to the article, these are the settings you can use:

6 a.m. to 9 a.m. = 68 degrees
9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. = 60 degrees
5:30 to 11 p.m. = 68 degrees
11 p.m. to 6 a.m. = 60 degrees

Obviously, adjust to your own preferences. If you have a nice, cozy bed with a big warm comforter, maybe you can deal with a temperature lower than 60 degrees at night. You can then preset the thermostat to start warming up an hour or so before you wake so you can get up to a toasty house.

So, that's it for Part Uno! Second installation to come shortly. Image is from caaneo.ca.

Use Free "Passive" Solar Power

With the winter months coming, heating bills are probably going to rise. Solar power may help mitigate your increasing costs - even if you don't have solar panels! "Active" solar power utilizes sunlight to generate electricity, but "passive" solar power just creates heat directly from sunlight.

Short term solutions include just drawing back your curtains when the sun is facing the window. The sunlight entering will slowly warm up your room. Likewise, lower the blinds and shut the curtains when it's dark, to insulate your home.

Long term, you may be able to do some planning to further utilize passive solar power. Plant deciduous trees in front of windows. With these trees in place, in the summer, the leaves will block out sunlight, keeping your home cooler, and in the winter, sunlight can stream through the branches into your home.

There are all kinds of complex designs and engineering, involving water walls, insulation, and air circulation, that I don't quite understand and wouldn't feel comfortable explaining by myself, so I found a bunch of really good resources in case you are more interesting in passive solar heating.

At the Sound Home Research Center, there is some pretty good basic information, such as the costs and benefits, what works and what doesn't work.

The Arizona Solar Center has a very informative and detailed page on passive solar energy. This definitely is not for the amateur.

Here's a pretty basic YouTube video about passive heating. It's called Passive Solar Heating - Glass is All You Need. It's not the most dramatic or interesting video I've ever watched, but it does a good job of explaining.

This website shows some really cool solar home plans. Just in case you ever feel like building an home in the future.

So, there is something you can do to help lower your energy bills. Passive solar energy can be utilized by just drawing back your curtains, to building additions to your home, but you certainly don't need a fancy house and design like the one above, courtesy of www.skci.net.

How cold does it get where you live? I used to live in Wisconsin, and it would always get to below zero every winter, with tons of snow! Now that I live in the South, I haven't really seen temperatures drop below ten degrees, and we haven't had much snow except for a few flurries each year.