Maintaining a comfortable temperature level in your home is the biggest hitter on your energy bills. Did you know that your heating and cooling system accounts for around 45% of your total utility cost? The easiest and most cost effective advice I can give you is simply adjusting your thermostat up in the summer and down in the winter.

This suggestion probably sounds obvious to most but many are unwilling to even consider making a small adjustment. I’m not expecting anyone to be uncomfortable in their own home, but you can save 3% per degree in the winter and 3-4% per degree in the summer. Now 2 or 3 degrees is hard to physically notice but can reduce your energy consumption throughout the year considerably. How about a 6-10% yearly savings, are you willing to consider a small bump now?

Another thing to consider is installing a programmable thermostat. You can program these thermostats to automatically change the desired temperature of your home while you are away at work or on vacation effectively saving you money. Of course you could do this yourself before leaving but the possibility of forgetting is always there.

A programmable thermostat is a great cost effective solution and will easily pay for itself in less than a year. You won’t have to be uncomfortable when you get home because your smart new thermostat will have made an automatic adjustment and started working towards your desired temperature before you get home.

There are of course a wide variety of programmable thermostats ranging from inexpensive to highly advanced and very costly. You can get the job done with a very basic version found at any home improvement store. Anyone can switch out a thermostat even if you aren’t the advanced DIY type. Thermostats run off of low voltage so there’s no need to worry about electric shock, just follow the provided instructions and your upgrade will be done in less than 10 minutes.

Very important notice of extreme money and energy waste

Keep in mind that cranking your thermostat way up or down doesn’t actually make your system heat or cool any faster, so adjust your thermostat in small increments. In fact, if you have a heat pump installed and you crank the heat way up, it may actually turn on the backup or emergency heat which can turn on heat strips and unnecessarily jack your electric bill up costing you money and wasting energy.

By: Bradley C. Williams

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