How to Save Money on Your Heating Bill This Winter
Winter is coming. Or, better put, winter is already here. For those of us used to the frigid chill of winter air, this is the time to don heavier sweaters, scrape the ice off our cars, and yes, turn up the heat.
When the time comes, and you can no longer put off cranking the thermostat up, there is one other thing that goes up with the heat: your heating bill. Costs typically rise in winter, due to people's natural inclination to want to stay warm, and the demand for heating resources going up. It is the age-old connection between supply and demand. This can mean that saving money in the wintertime feels like a Herculean feat, or just downright undesirable, but you do not need to shiver for the next few months in order to save on your heating bill.
Try these tips that we have compiled, and enjoy the warmth of a slightly lower heating bill.
Use Heat Only When You Need It
It's very tempting to huddle in a pile of blankets and binge watch or hibernate your way through the winter. Unfortunately, almost all of us have to leave our homes on a regular basis. Use these absences to your advantage. If you are going to work or will be away from home for more than a couple of hours, go ahead and drop the temperature on your thermostat a few degrees. This lowered temperature will show up on your heating bill as money saved because your furnace does not have to work as hard to maintain the lower temperature.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, you can save as much as 10% on your heating costs by turning your thermostat back 7 to 10 degrees from its normal setting for 8 hours per day.
This same trick works for when you are asleep. Usually, when you go to bed, you are bundled under many blankets and are wearing warm pajamas. Bumping the thermostat back a couple of degrees as you are going to bed can add to the savings you get from doing the same while you are away from home.
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This trick works even more efficiently when paired with a programmable thermostat. This prevents you from forgetting to set the temperature to one number or the other at any point, because you can program it once, then let the program take care of it for the rest of the season. Programmable thermostats usually have four slots for programming, allowing you to set temperature changes at four different times of the day.
