7 Winter Home Comfort Tips to Keep You Warm Without Wasting Energy
Winter can take a toll on the comfort of your Kinston, North Carolina, home. Follow these tips to increase your home’s comfort during the winter without wasting energy:
Change Your Filters
One of the most basic HVAC maintenance tasks you can and should handle yourself is regularly changing your air filters. The benefits of changing your HVAC filters regularly make them well worth the investment.
Air filters catch contaminants before they enter your home’s air supply. This can remove irritants and illness-causing contaminants, thereby increasing your family’s comfort through the winter.
Changing your air filter also helps your HVAC system use less energy. The dirtier your air filter, the more your HVAC system has to work to push air through it. Making it easier for your heater to send clean air through your home saves you money on your utility bills.
Schedule Maintenance Visits
Scheduling regular maintenance visits from a certified HVAC service technician twice a year can help you address any problems in your system. We suggest scheduling your maintenance visits in spring and fall to ensure your system is ready to keep your family comfortable in summer and winter. In addition to preventive maintenance tasks, the service technician will look for potential problems with your system and do any necessary repairs. This will make your system run more efficiently and save you money.
Hang Heavier Curtains
One hack for making your home warmer with less energy involves hanging heavy curtains over your windows. Heat escapes through uncovered window panes, and your HVAC system has to work harder to keep up. Heavier curtains lessen the loss of warm air through windows by trapping it inside where you and your family can enjoy it.
Seal Doors and Windows
Another way to keep the warm air inside is by sealing your windows and doors tightly. On a particularly cold day, run your hand along the edges of your windows and doors to look for cold areas. If you find one, it likely means there’s a leak where warm air is escaping. You can re-caulk or cover your windows to seal them properly. For drafty doors, use weatherstrips.
If there are sections of your home you rarely use, consider sealing them off in the winter. This will make your HVAC system focus on warming the rooms you do use, further saving energy.
Insulate Your Home
When a home has proper insulation, the warm air you’re paying for won’t escape outside. Insulation keeps warm air inside your home and cool air out. It works the same way in the summer, making it a wise investment for any home. Have a certified HVAC service technician perform a heat scan of your home to see if you have proper insulation. An infrared thermal imaging inspection will show where the colder parts of your home are to let your service technician spot the problem areas.
Change Your Furniture Setup
Where you position your furniture in your home affects how comfortable you feel. For example, if you have a couch against one of your home’s external walls, you’ll feel cooler than you would with it against an internal wall. Set your furniture up to favor interior walls, or bring them closer to the middle of the room. You’ll enjoy more warm air.
Layer Up
Put your sweaters and cozy socks to use to stay more comfortable. That may sound obvious, but remember that you pay for every degree of home heating. If you can use less energy to warm your home by using your sweater and blanket collection, you can stay comfortable while using less energy for your HVAC system.
If you want to have your home’s HVAC system maintained, call J & J Mechanical, Inc. We’ll help you ensure you’re making your home as comfortable as possible.
Image provided by Shutterstock