Spring is almost here, but winter retains an (almost) icy grip on the Bay Area. You would love to find some ways to get HVAC maintenance costs down, if only incrementally, until the warmer months are finally upon us.
Here are 4 ideas for how to penny pinch.
1. Turn the temperature down and wear sweaters sometimes.
It sounds like advice your 80-something-old great aunt would give you. But it’s not necessarily bad advice! People can adapt to different environmental conditions. Today, if your shower is even just lukewarm, you will probably complain that it was “icy”. If you can habituate yourself to a slightly chillier inside temperature, you can slash your heating bill considerably.
2. Measure, automate, and save.
When homeowners see how much energy they use–and they can manipulate those metrics, they automatically act in a more conservative fashion. In other words, you don’t have to force yourself. Just install a device to measure your energy, and you will quite unconsciously adopt better habits.
3. Heat only where you need heat.
Perhaps you have eight rooms and three bathrooms. Do all eleven rooms need to be at a toasty 75 degrees during the coldest nights of the year? Probably not. Use space heaters. Or, if you want automated, customizable functionality, consider talking to a Castro Valley HVAC expert to install such a system. Even if you don’t end up saving that much (after the cost of the servicing) this season, over the lifetime of your home, you will almost certainly make up the costs and then some.
4. Clean out your system to get rid of needless waste.
An inefficient system–clogged by dust and contaminants or warped by natural wear and tear–can lead you to literally burn money (in the sense that you will pay for energy that you never feel)
The Bay Area home heating experts at B.A. Morrison would be more than happy to help with your home energy efficiency audit and answer any questions you have about how to lower your budget. Call us today: 510-538-9817.
