It’s difficult to start planning for cold weather during this hot summer. New Mexico’s weather is unpredictable at best though, and the winter season can strike with no notice. It’s a great idea to start preparing your home for cold temperatures as soon as possible. Heating your home can be a very costly endeavor. It’s estimated that, on average; about half of annual energy consumption is the result of heat loss or misuse of heating. Fear not, there are several things that can be done to reduce heating costs.
One huge step that can greatly reduce costs is to strengthen the insulation in your home. Heat can escape very easy! When heat escapes from your home, your thermostat tells your heating unit to use more energy in order to maintain your desired temperature. If you have not already done so, it’s a great idea to replace windows and doorframes with insulating elements and adopt systems to eliminate drafts and heat loss.
Choose high efficiency heaters and use them at low temperatures. Avoid installing a heating system that is more powerful than your home actually requires. It would be more useful to implant smart thermostats and thermostatic valves on the radiators.
Ecobee3 is the best overall choice for a smart thermostat because its sensors let you deliver the right temperature on a room-by-room basis. It also knows which rooms are occupied and comes with an intuitive app. Compared to the competition, the Ecobee3 also has the best overall feature set, and its mobile app worked seamlessly. It’s compatible with Apple’s Home Kit and the Amazon Echo.
If you don’t want the Ecobee3, the Nest Learning Thermostat is definitely a solid choice to consider. The third version of this Google owned thermostat has a larger and sharper display than its predecessor. It can talk to hundreds of other smart home devices and can automatically change the temperature when someone comes home.
If your home has a centralized system that accounts for heating separate rooms, it is important to keep the doors of unused rooms and premises closed. Keep closets or guest rooms closed; that way you can avoid the circulation of hot and cold air in these rooms and the heater produces less energy.
Finally, insulate the walls to avoid heat loss to the outside. The most common and widely available type of insulation comes in the form of rolls. It consists of flexible fibers, most commonly fiberglass. You also can find rolls made from mineral, wool, plastic fibers, and natural fibers, such as cotton and sheep’s wool. Particularly in mountain regions, you need to completely insulate the walls of your residence. It is an investment that could save you up to 70% of the annual cost of heating.
When preparing your home for chilly weather, it’s important to insulate every area where heat can escape. It’s also important to have an efficient heater that’s not too powerful for the size of your home. A smart thermostat can also make life a lot easier when setting appropriate temperatures.