Save Money on Heating Bills
The Winter months can be some of the hardest months to save - you spend more on warm yummy food, you spend most of your spare time in doors trying to entertain yourself (watching movies, going to movies) and by the end of August, you are well and truely behind in your plan to save money.
Today I thought I would share with you a few ways to save money on electricity and oil (depending on how you heat your house) so that you can save money on heating bills.
Tips to Save Money on Heating
- Perform an Energy Audit on your house and identify where your heat is leaking out. Maybe its that window you leave open upstairs or in the laundry? If your house is properly sealed, heat will last for longer period of time.
- Minimise your usage of ventalation fans - these fans let a lot of warm air escape very quickly.
- Don’t heat areas of your house that you don’t use. That downstairs rumpus room can stay cold over winter if no one is going to use it.
- Turn down your heaters and wear a jumper around the house to make up for the few degrees in temperature drop.
- Keep your oil heaters, electric heat fans and other heating products up to date. Spending $300 for a new heater might seem like a lot, but the energy you save will be substantial.
- Let the house heat slowly over the day on a weaker temperature. Doing this will allow progressive house heating and minimise the hot air escaping.
- Consider a programmable temperature device - this will let you heat your house on only certain periods of the day. Eg; Early morning and Bed time.
- If you’re hot water system is located outside, whether it be gas or electricity - wrap it in a thermal blanket you can buy from any old Bunnings warehouse. This stops the water from cooling to quickly and saves your hot water system working on overload.
- Wash your clothes in cold water to help save on hot water.
- Althougt it is might tempting to stand under the hot water in the shower for long periods of time - remember that water heating costs contribute to 35-40% of your heating costs - cutting your showers down to just 3minutes or less can actively help you save money on water and minimise your heating bills.
- In winter - open your windows and blinds on sunny days so that your house can naturally recieve some sun light, which in turn will heat the house up. Be very careful not to leave them open past the sunny period of the day, as this tip will work against you if left unmonitored.
Other Ways to Save Money on Heating
I would be very interested to learn other ways to save money on heating. Feel free to share with me some tips that you use for heating your house in winter along with minimising your utility bills and payments for the winter period.
