How Not To Make Your Furnace Work Too Hard

Whether you’ve got a forced air system that blows heat through ducts from your furnace, electric baseboards, old-school radiators or even radiant heat under wooden floors, chances are you’re shocked each winter when your utility bill goes through the roof. Tack on a broken heating system in the middle of winter, and you’ll be spending thousands more to keep your home warm.

Not turning your thermostat down when you leave. The best way to cut down on energy costs from your heating system in winter is to make it run less while you’re asleep or out of the house. Programmable thermostats make it easy to set a schedule for the temperature to be turned down while you’re out during the workday or on vacation – say, to the mid-60s – and rise to your preferred temperature just before you come home.

And it’s not just the temperature of the air that you’ll find changed – the air inside will likely keep it’s humidity better as well. “What causes the air to be dry inside the house is infiltration of 20-degree outside air coming in.”

Cranking the thermostat when you’re cold. When you get home from a cold walk outside, it probably feels natural to turn up the thermostat a few extra degrees to pump out the hot air a little quicker. But experts say doing so won’t help at all: “Most people tend to think that if they put the thermostat up high, it’s going to get warmer faster.” “If the ideal temperature you want is 70, setting it to 75 is not going to get it to 70 any faster.”
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