Call Us Today 
5 Ways to Save Money on Heating Costs this Winter
Learn how to keep your costs down without having to sacrifice your comfort
While the LA area doesn’t see the same sort of brutally cold winter temperatures you find elsewhere in the nation, you may still find yourself spending more than you’d like on your heating bills. To keep costs down, your first instinct might be to simply use your furnace less. While this approach definitely works, it will leave you chilly and uncomfortable all winter long.
To save money without sacrificing your comfort, try these 5 tips.
Get Your Furnace Serviced
If you want your furnace to operate at peak efficiency, you need to keep it as close to like-new condition as possible. This means getting professional service to inspect, clean, and repair the unit every year. Even something as simple as a cleaning can greatly improve the speed and evenness of the heat you get from your furnace.
Improve Your Insulation
Many older homes have inadequate or damaged insulation that is allowing a lot of heat to escape during the winter. You can stop this heat loss, run your furnace less, and save money on your heating bills by having the pros at Econo West check your attic insulation and blow in new, high-efficiency insulation as needed.
Request an Air Balancing Visit
If your home does not have proper airflow, your HVAC efficiency will suffer. Possible problems include inadequate ventilation, excessive air loss through building leaks, or an improperly sized furnace. During an air balancing visit, an Econo West HVAC expert can run various tests to assess the air flow in your home and recommend any necessary improvements that will support your comfort as well as your energy efficiency.
Use Solar Heat
Bright sunny days offer an abundance of free heat in the form of sunlight. You can take advantage of this by opening your curtains and blinds wide, especially on south and west facing windows. This will allow solar heat gain to warm your rooms for absolutely free. Just beware of using this tactic if it would cause direct sun to fall on your thermostat. You do not want to heat up the thermostat so much that the furnace fails to run enough to keep other rooms in your home warm.
Get a Programmable Thermostat
One final tip for saving money on your heating bills this winter without spending all day and night huddled under a mountain of blankets is to invest in a programmable thermostat. Using a programmable thermostat, you can avoid wasting energy keeping your home toasty while you’re away, without having to manually adjust the temperature every time. You can also avoid coming home to a chilly house after setting the thermostat low all day. Instead, the programmable thermostat will do everything for you. Simply program in the desired temperatures based on your schedule. Typically, you will want to set the thermostat lower while you are away or asleep, and program it to kick back on and warm up the house about an hour before you typically return home or wake up in the morning.
