5 Tips for Lowering Energy Costs This Winter

There are probably too many DIY home repair videos you can watch, and while many of them are helpful, not everyone has the time or inclination to be handy. That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. As the owner of the home, responsibility for the property falls on you.

Take charge and manage your new home.

For your home to be a comfy, cozy, welcoming, peaceful, safe, clean, sanctuary—or whatever you need it to be—it needs to be functional and sustainable first.

Give yourself a budget.

Nothing can get done without money. Consider saving as much as 3% of your home’s value every year for maintenance and repairs, suggests the experts at HGTV. For example, a homeowner with a median-priced, single-family home in New Hampshire, say $300,000, needs to save $9,000 per year.

Get the most out of your budget.

Waste is a slow killer in any system striving for sustainability. Remember, the energy efficiency of your house is more than any single appliance or piece of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical equipment.

Using energy efficiently in order to save money on utility costs requires a holistic approach to minimizing waste, including unnecessary and avoidable spending.

Here are 5 Tips For Lowering Energy Costs This Winter:

1. Drain garden hoses of water and store them inside.

November is the month for draining your outside hoses and bringing them inside, according to New England Month-by-Month Gardening, by Charlie Nardozzi. Any residual water left in a hose, left outside at temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, can freeze, expand, and tear your hose.

By keeping your hose attached to the outdoor spigot, the water can expand back into the house when it freezes and break your copper pipes. A burst pipe in your home is not only costly to repair, but the resulting water damage can be crippling to a family’s budget.

2. Plug up those drafty spots.

Shrink window kits might’ve worked when you were renting, but this is your house. Invest in it for long-term use and value.

NHSaves offers free energy audits and money-saving programs to encourage energy-efficient options for homes, businesses, and municipalities.

If you need an immediate, short-term fix, those shrink window kits work well. Look close, and you’ll see that a careful application of silicone window and door sealant may do the trick to seal the air leaks.

While you’re buying a tube of silicone, pick up weather stripping and under-door seals. Altogether, this weekend home-improvement project can reduce your energy costs by up to 30%, according to the Department of Energy.

3. Get those ceiling fans spinning.

Many people use ceiling fans in the summer to circulate air and cool down a room or porch. Don’t forget about ceiling fans over the winter, though. They can be helpful to saving on heating costs.

The reason ceiling fans cool rooms in the summer is because they lift hot air up. Likewise, setting your ceiling fan to spin clockwise will push the warm air down, which keeps the room warmer in the winter, says ENERGY STAR®.

The best way to save energy is to not use it, so the less your furnace or boiler runs, the less money you spend.

4. Tune up your boiler or furnace.

The U.S. Department of Energy says you can expect a consistent decline in performance and energy efficiency for every year you skip preventative maintenance to your heating system.

Plus, you put your heating equipment at risk for sudden failure, expensive repairs, and poor performance that will shorten the life of the unit. Skipping annual maintenance and taking a chance nothing will go wrong can leave you without heat and an expensive emergency repair bill.

Follow this link to discover 3 Ways Furnace Tune-ups Pay Off.

5. Get a better thermostat.

Lowering your home’s temperature 7 to 10 degrees for 8 hours a day can save you up to 10% on your yearly energy costs, according to the Department of Energy.

That works out great, actually, because you can lower the temperature before you leave for work and then raise it back up when you get home.

Sounds like an annoying thing that’ll get forgotten with New Year’s resolutions, right? A programmable thermostat can remember for you. You may get one free with your home energy audit.

If you don’t feel like programming your thermostat, today’s artificial intelligence thermostats can learn when your home, away, and sleeping in order to adjust your home’s temperature automatically.

The Nest thermostat reports saving users up to 12% on heating costs and up to 15% on cooling.