Energy Conservation Tips
You hear a lot about energy conservation these days and when you get your winter utility bills, I'm sure there are times you tell yourself, "There's got to be some way to reduce these fuel bills!" You may have even gone so far as to check some of the most obvious sources of energy loss like your windows and doors. Are all your windows closed tight and locked? Locking the window, whether it is a double hung or casement style, ensures that the sash is fully seated into the weather stripping and prevents the top sash from drifting down ever so slightly, leaving a gap for the warm air in your home to go rushing outside.
A similar principle applies with your exterior doors. Check to make sure the strike plate is adjusted correctly so that the door seats tightly into the weather strip all the way around the door. A strike plate that is adjusted too far towards the inside of the jamb will allow the door to only lightly touch the weather strip and when the wind kicks up it can push its way past and on into the house.
But there are other sources of heat loss from your home that you may not have considered. For example, when you fip the exhaust fan on in your bathroom or over your stove you are not only removing humidity or odors, you're pumping heat out of the house. Think about it this way: if you have a 2500-3000 square foot home and leave an exhaust fan on for four hours, you have effectively removed all the heated air from the house. Make sure the fan is turned off as soon as the air is cleared of the humidity or odors and, please, never leave that fan running when you head off for work!
An option you might consider for the bathroom is to install an exhaust fan with a built-in sensor for humidity. That way when you leave the bathroom after a shower you have the peace of mind knowing that when the moisture in the air has been evacuated the fan will turn itself off and leave the rest of your heat in the house where it belongs.
Another source of heat loss in a home is the recessed lights on the uppermost floor. Even when there is proper insulation in the attic around the light fxture there can be a "chimney effect" generated by the light. This is especially true if you use a standard incandescent bulb in your recessed light. The intense heat from the bulb heats up the can, then the insulation and, as it continues to rise, pulls a draft from the house up through the can, through the insulation and into the attic. Obviously, what goes out must come in, so the negative pressure then pulls cold air in someplace else in the house. One of the things you can do to at least minimize this effect is to use one of the new compact fuorescent bulbs in your recessed fxtures. Because they operate at a much lower temperature they do not create as intense of a "chimney effect" through the light fxture. In addition, they use less energy than an incandescent bulb, so you save in two ways. Do remember, however, that you will not be able to dim your fxtures in which you've used compact fuorescents.
If you are going to have to pay for the fuel anyway then at least make sure you are getting maximum effciency out of your furnace as it burns. One of the simplest things you can do to ensure maximum effciency is to keep a clean flter in the unit. You should be changing a standard flter at least every 3 months, but if conditions in your home are generating more dust than usual then checking and changing the flter more frequently is in order. A clean flter maximizes air fow which allows the most effcient transfer of the heat from the furnace to the air in your home. These are just a few simple steps you can take to maintain your investment and keep your energy costs down during the winter months.
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3409 Catlett Road, Catlett, Virginia 20119