Winterizing your northeast Ohio home before cold weather hits is crucial if you want your house to remain as comfortable as possible, while keeping your heating bills as low as possible. Follow these five simple tips for winterizing your home.
- Air leaks – Air leaks prevent your heating system from properly warming your house, while wasting energy and money. For a simple do-it-yourself air leak search, walk around the interior perimeter of your home with a lighted incense stick or candle, and watch for places where the smoke wavers. Or walk around the outside after dark, and look for places where you can see light inside. Seal air leaks with caulk or expanding spray foam.
- Windows – If you have older windows that have been allowing drafts inside, consider replacing them with Energy Star approved windows, which are much more efficient. Though they may be somewhat costly, you will recoup this money in energy savings over time, not to mention that upgrading your windows adds to your home’s value.
- Insulation – Heat rises, which means that without an insulated attic, much of the heat in your home will rise into the attic, where it will turn to cold air before returning back to your home. As you can imagine, this will overwork your heating system, causing wear and tear to the system as well as increasing your heating bills.
- Heating system maintenance – A professional service will check your entire HVAC system to make sure it’s running efficiently, as well as clean and replace any necessary parts to ensure energy savings and comfort.
- Filters – Be sure to check the air filter on your furnace or heat pump at least once a month during the heating season, and replace as necessary. Once the filter fills with dust and debris, your heating equipment will have trouble blowing air through, overworking your equipment and reducing heating performance.
Follow these simple tips when winterizing your home. For more information on winterizing your home, please contact us at Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning for the most reliable HVAC services.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Lorain, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about winterizing your home and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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Energy 1 Heating & Air Conditioning
1 (440) 246-5440
Serving the Lorain, OH Area