Tips & Tricks

Fall home maintenance tips for keeping your home from losing heat

Many people enjoy the chill atmosphere fall comes with. Fall is a period you’d anticipate to have a cozy time in your home, curling up in beds with blankets rolled up and a book in hand. A beautiful weather when you’d go for hayrides, pumpkin carving and spending nights by the fire. To have a satisfying fall time, you have to make sure your heat sources are in order, particularly when they have not been in use for a very long time. You would have to service and check and also maintain them while in use. This involves inspection of the fireplaces and furnaces by professionals. Having your chimney inspected, kept and certified annually by recognized persons is the best way to circumvent chimney fire. You would find the safety tips below helpful in your daily maintenance of heat sources and how to optimize energy sources to save cost and ultimately reward you with long-term energy savings.

Use the Sun to Your Advantage

Heat from the sun should be a plus. You can naturally heat your home by simply opening your southwards windows. The sunlight would help keep your home warm during the day. Make sure you close the windows at night to avoid chilling cold from such windows.

Engage in Temperature Controls

You can maximize energy savings by regulating your home temperature. When you are home, set the thermostat to the lowest mark, and when you are leaving the house, you can set it back to normal to help heat your home for at least eight hours. Keep heat pumps to moderate temperatures. Alternatively, you can use an adjustable thermostat specified for heat pumps.

Maintain Your Heating Systems

Servicing of your heating system ought to be scheduled. Knowledge of maintenance of furnaces, boilers, fireplaces, chimneys and heat pumps is vital. So learn about it. And have your furnace and heat pumps filters replaced when the need arises. For wood and pellet burning heaters, the vents should be routinely cleaned using a wire brush.

Leaks should be sealed

Inspect pipes, gaps around chimneys, cupboards, closets and insulated ceiling for leaks and seal if any. Be informed of the methods of leak detection and air-sealing. Also, read about caulk and weather stripping selection and application.

Keep Heat Loss from the Fire Place to the Minimum

You can minimize heat loss from the fireplace as much as possible by keeping the damper closed when the fire is out. Open dampers to direct warm air up the chimney. While using the fireplace, the dampers at the bottom of the firebox should be open. Alternatively, you can use the window; then close the doors to the room. The thermostat setting should be between 500 and 550F. Plug and seal the chimney flue of your fireplace, if you have no intention of making use of it. However, if you must use it, set up tempered glass doors and a heat exchange system. This allows warmed air from the fireplace to circulate into your rooms.

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