Cleaning is Crucial!
If you’re like me, your heater doesn’t even occur to you until the weather calls for it to be immediately turned on. At that point, the last thing you’ll want to do is wait for heat while you go clean. Solution: clean it now! You’ll increase your efficiency and save dollars. You should also replace your furnace filters. A dirty filter will require more energy to push air through, meaning higher cost, higher energy used and less warmth reaching you. Plan to replace your filters on a monthly basis during the winter months to eliminate that potential, as well as the potential for fires to start from too much heat building up.
Turn Down by 2 Degrees
Just like in summer when the suggestion is to turn the thermometer setting up 2 degrees from what you’re most comfortable at, when it’s winter you can green up your heating by turning the thermostat down by 2 degrees. This means instead of 70 degrees, see if you can get by with 68 degrees. It’s also a great green idea to turn your hot water thermostat down. These are typically set to 140° but you should be able to turn it down to 120° and not even notice the difference.
Insulate it All!
Insulate, insulate, insulate! Insulate your windows, your door drafts, wall cracks, you name it. If there’s a chance to fill in or add an extra layer, do it. You’ll make a big difference. Invest in an insulating blanket for your hot water heater to conserve its heat and make sure that you are well insulated with hefty sweaters! Green sweaters made from organically raised sheep are one of your best options and they’ll help keep you from even noticing those extra 2 degrees you just turned your thermostat down.
Programmable Green!
You can actually program your heating to be greener with a programmable thermostat. Instead of relying on our less than perfect memories, you can program your thermostat to turn up/down/on/off at all the right times. This way you’ll never leave the house for 8 hours and forget to turn it off or fall asleep with it turned to high. You’ll cut wasted energy very easily. You can also program it to turn on just before you get home so you cut down the pre-warming time frame.
Heat LESS
Of course, one of the easiest, best, and cheapest ways to go green is just to heat less! Instead of heating your whole house with your central heating system, challenge yourself to stick to one or two rooms and heat just those with a couple portable heaters. You’ll get instant heat in one room that you can turn off just as soon as it’s warm, meaning less heating time and in less spaces too! Perfect for the bedroom at night when that’s the only room you need warmth in or the home office when you’ll be in it all day. Why bother heating the whole house if you can’t be in all the rooms at the same time? Especially the guest room!
