Heating and cooling your
home uses more energy and drains more energy dollars than any other system in
your home. Typically, 61% of your utility bill goes for heating and cooling.
What’s more, heating and cooling systems in the United States together emit
over a half billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year,
adding to global
warming. They also generate
about 24% of the nation’s sulfur dioxide and 12% of the nitrogen oxides, the
chief ingredients in acid rain.
No matter what kind of
heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system you have in your
house, you can save money and increase your comfort by properly maintaining and
upgrading your equipment. But remember, an energy-efficient furnace alone will
not have as great an impact on your energy bills as using the whole-house
approach.
By combining proper
equipment maintenance and upgrades with appropriate insulation, air sealing,
and thermostat settings, you can cut your energy bills and your pollution
output in half.
Heating and Cooling
Tips
• Set your thermostat as
low as is comfortable in the winter and
as high as is comfortable
in the summer.
• Clean or replace filters
on furnaces once a month or as needed.
• Clean warm-air registers,
baseboard heaters, and radiators as needed; make sure they’re not blocked by
furniture, carpeting, or drapes.
• Bleed trapped air from
hot-water radiators once or twice a season;
if in doubt about how to
perform this task, call a professional.
• Place heat-resistant
radiator reflectors between exterior walls and
the radiators.
• Turn off kitchen, bath,
and other exhaust fans within 20 minutes after you are done cooking or bathing;
when replacing exhaust fans,
consider installing high-efficiency,
low-noise models.
• During the heating
season, keep the draperies and shades on your southfacing windows open during
the day to allow the sunlight to
enter your home and closed
at night to reduce the chill you may feel from cold windows.
• During the cooling
season, keep the window coverings closed during the day to prevent solar gain.
Long-Term Savings Tips
• Select energy-efficient
products when you buy new heating and
cooling equipment. Your
contractor should be able to give you energy
fact sheets for different
types, models, and designs to help you.
Ducts
One of the most important
systems in your home, though it’s hidden beneath your feet and over your head,
may be wasting a lot of your energy dollars.
Your home’s duct system, a
branching network of tubes in the walls, floors, and ceilings, carries the air
from your home’s furnace and central air conditioner to each room. Ducts are
made of sheet metal, fiber glass, or other materials. Unfortunately, many duct
systems
are poorly insulated or not
insulated properly. Ducts that leak heated air into unheated spaces can add
hundreds of dollars a year to your heating and cooling bills. Insulating ducts
that are in unconditioned spaces is usually very cost effective. If you are
buying a new duct system, consider one that comes with insulation already
installed.
Sealing your ducts to
prevent leaks is even more important if the ducts
are located in an
unconditioned area such as an attic or vented crawl
space. If the supply ducts
are leaking, heated or cooled air can be forced out unsealed joints and lost.
In addition, unconditioned air can be drawn into return ducts through unsealed
joints.
In the summer, hot attic
air can be drawn in, increasing the load on the air conditioner. In the winter,
your furnace will have to work longer to keep your house comfortable. Either
way, your energy losses cost you money. Minor duct repairs are easy to do, Here
are a few simple tips to help with minor duct repairs.
Duct Tips
• Check your ducts for air
leaks. First, look for sections that should
be joined but have
separated and then look for obvious holes.
• If you use tape to seal
your ducts, avoid cloth-backed, rubber adhesive duct tape, which tends to fail
quickly. Researchers recommend other products to seal ducts: mastic, butyl
tape, foil tape, or other heat approved tapes. Look for tape with the
Underwriters Laboratories logo.
• Remember that insulating
ducts in the basement will make the
basement colder. If both
the ducts and the basement walls are
uninsulated, consider
insulating both.*
* Note: Water pipes and
drains in unconditioned spaces could freeze and burst in the space if the heat
ducts are fully insulated, because there would be no heat source to prevent the
space from freezing in cold weather. However, using an electric heating tape
wrap on the pipes can prevent this.
• If your basement has been
converted to a living area, install both supply and return registers in the
basement rooms.
• Be sure a well-sealed
vapor barrier exists on the outside of the insulation on cooling ducts to
prevent moisture buildup.
• For new construction,
consider placing ducts in conditioned
space—space that is heated
and cooled—instead of running ducts
through unconditioned areas
like the crawl space or attic, which is
less efficient.
Fireplaces
When you cozy up next to a
crackling fire on a cold winter day, you probably don’t realize that your
fireplace is one of the most inefficient heat sources you can possibly use. It
literally sends your energy dollars right up the chimney along with volumes of
warm air. A
roaring fire can exhaust as
much as 24,000 cubic feet of air per hour to the outside, which must be
replaced by cold air coming into the house from the outside. Your heating
system must warm up this air, which is then exhausted through your chimney. If
you use your
conventional fireplace
while your central heating system is on, these tips can help reduce energy
losses.
Fireplace Tips
• If you never use your
fireplace, plug and seal the chimney flue.
• Keep your fireplace
damper closed unless a fire is going. Keeping the
damper open is like keeping
a window wide open during the winter; it allows warm air to go right up the
chimney.
• When you use the
fireplace, reduce heat loss by opening dampers in the bottom of the firebox (if
provided) or open the nearest window slightly— approximately 1 inch—and close
doors leading into the room. Lower the thermostat setting to between 50° and
55°F.
• Install tempered glass
doors and a heat-air exchange system that blows warmed air back into the room.
• Check the seal on the
flue damper and make it as snug as possible.
• Add caulking around the
fireplace hearth.
• Use grates made of
C-shaped metal tubes to draw cool room air into the fireplace and circulate warm
air back into the room.
Natural Gas and Oil
Heating Systems
If you plan to buy a new
heating system, ask your local utility or state
energy office for
information about the latest technologies available to
consumers. They can advise
you about more efficient systems on the market today. For example, many newer
models incorporate designs for burners and heat exchangers that result in
higher efficiencies during operation and reduce heat loss when the equipment is
off. Consider a sealed combustion furnace; they are both safer and more
efficient.
Long-Term Savings Tip
• Install a new
energy-efficient furnace to save money over the long
term. Look for the ENERGY
STAR and EnergyGuide labels.
Programmable
Thermostats
You can save as much as 10%
a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back
10% to 15% for 8 hours. You can do this automatically without sacrificing
comfort by installing an automatic setback or programmable thermostat.
Using a programmable
thermostat, you can adjust the times you turn on the heating or
air-conditioning according to a pre-set schedule. As a result, the equipment
doesn’t operate as much when you are asleep or when the house or part of the
house is not occupied.
Programmable thermostats
can store and repeat multiple daily settings
(six or more temperature
settings a day) that you can manually override without affecting the rest of
the daily or weekly program.
Landscaping
Landscaping is a natural
and beautiful way to keep your home cool in summer and reduce your energy
bills. In addition to adding aesthetic value and environmental quality to your
home, a well-placed tree, shrub, or vine can deliver effective shade, act as a
windbreak, and reduce overall energy bills.
Carefully positioned trees
can save up to 25% of a typical household’s
energy used for heating and
cooling. Computer models from DOE predict that just three trees, properly
placed around the house, can save an average household between $100 and $250 in
heating and cooling energy costs annually.
Studies conducted by
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found
summer daytime air
temperatures to be 3° to 6°F cooler in tree-shaded neighborhoods than in
treeless areas.
The energy-conserving
landscape strategies you should use for your
home depend on the type of
climate in which you live.
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