January 21, 2021

The cold winter in Layton brings with it a beauty all its own. Unfortunately, another thing that winter often brings with it is higher utility bills. If the cloudy and cold weather has already got you down, receiving a high utility bill could be too much to handle. That’s why it’s important to take some basic steps to save energy around your home so that you can enjoy lower utility bills throughout the winter.

Make Good Use of the Sun

When you’re trying to lower your home’s heating bills, don’t forget about the free heat that comes from the sun. On sunny days, you can significantly increase your home’s interior temperature simply by opening the curtains. When the sunlight comes inside, it will warm hard surfaces in your home, increasing the air temperature. Just be sure that there are no items that can easily fade sitting in the path of the sunlight.

Add Some Rugs

If you have hard-surface floors, you know how cold they can be during the winter. If you add some rugs, though, your feet will be able to stay warmer while you’re walking around your house. When your feet are warmer, your body tends to feel warmer, meaning that you won’t have to run your furnace as much. To really improve the warmth of hard-surface floors, we at Smedley Service recommend that you install radiant floor heating. This will both help keep your floors warmer and help heat the air in your home as the heat from the floor rises.

Reduce Your Hot Water Use

Your water heater works hard throughout the year to create hot water. Since the water that comes in from the supply line is colder in the winter, your water heater has to work especially hard during the colder months. Therefore, it’s important to reduce your hot water usage as much as possible so that your water heater doesn’t have to heat as much water. You can also try lowering your water heater’s temperature so that your water heater doesn’t have to use as much energy to maintain the temperature of the water.

Increase Your Insulation

One of the biggest challenges with saving energy in the winter is that all of the heated air in your living space wants to rise through your ceiling and out of your house. While every home will lose warm air to a certain extent, there are ways that you can slow down this transfer of energy.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is to add insulation to your attic. If you plan to stay in your house for the foreseeable future, the pros at Smedley Service encourage you to utilize spray foam insulation since it has a better return on investment over time. Even blown-in insulation, though, can dramatically impact the comfort and energy-efficiency of your home.

Open All Your Vents

Your HVAC system is designed to work as a complete system at all times. Therefore, if you try to bypass one or more components of this system, you could reduce the system’s overall efficiency. That’s why it’s important to keep all of your vents open throughout your home at all times, even in rooms that you don’t use very often. If you close certain vents, you could put excess pressure on the air handler, causing problems that require the attention of Smedley Service.

Additionally, since closing vents in certain rooms will cause those rooms to be colder, you could find that the cold air escapes from those rooms and lowers the temperature in the rest of your home. This means that your HVAC system will have to run more frequently, thus increasing your utility bills.

Avoid Space Heaters

Although space heaters are convenient, they are far from energy-efficient. Since a space heater can’t heat a large area, the significant amount of energy required to operate a space heater ends up largely wasted. Rather than using a space heater, a better option is to simply add a layer of clothes so that you can stay warm without excess energy usage.

Trust the Experts

If you can’t seem to lower your home’s energy usage, you may have a problem with your HVAC system. That’s why it’s a good idea to have someone from Smedley Service take a look at your system before the cold weather moves in to make sure you don’t have any problems. We can take care of furnace repair, maintenance, and installation to ensure you’re comfortable all winter long. We also offer plumbing services, including backflow testing and drain cleaning, along with indoor air quality testing. Our customers consistently leave us five-star reviews for our excellent service and professionalism. To learn more about saving energy this winter, contact us at Smedley Service today.

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