Cut Heating Costs by Upgrading your Thermostat

According to ENERGY STAR, the heating and cooling of your home is responsible for up to 50% of your energy bill. With this in mind, making sure that your HVAC system is running as efficiently as possible is one of the best steps you can take toward meeting your budgetary goals. During the winter months, having your furnace inspected and your ducts cleaned before it starts getting too cold can save you a ton, but if you are using an old thermostat to control the system, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Programmable Thermostats

The majority of thermostats on the market today are electronic and programmable. If your family has a set schedule – everyone leaves by 9 AM and is home around 5 PM, for example – programming your thermostat to set the temperature back by 8-10 degrees during those hours can save you 5-15% on your bill. While you can try to remember to do this on an older, non-programmable thermostat, making the switch will guarantee that you maximize those savings.

Smart Thermostats

A smart thermostat takes programming to a whole new level. These systems can remember your habits and make changes automatically. If you usually turn up the heat just before bed, the thermostat learns your preference and changes the temperature for you. Some smart thermostats give you the ability to set the temperature from your phone and track your energy usage via their app. With extra sensors that connect wirelessly to the system, you can even prioritize a specific room in your home, ensuring that it is always the perfect temperature.

If you have been searching for a way to get your energy bill under control, a new thermostat may be worth a shot! We hope that you’ve found the information within this blog post to be helpful. If you have any questions on all that is HVAC, please feel free to contact our team here at Kent Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. – we’re always happy to help!

Is Your Home Trying to Tell You Something?

Sometimes you can hear little noises that tell you your home has a concern to address. You know, something like the drip, drip, drip of a faucet that says "fix me." Or the sound of wind that's coming through a crack that should be patched.

Spring is a good time to walk through your home just to "look and listen" to the maintenance issues that cropped up over the winter months. That way you’ll know what needs tending to.

Along those same lines, be sure to add your home comfort system to your maintenance list. Routine maintenance is one of the most practical ways you can preserve the life of your system and preserve your pocketbook at the same time. Maintained systems run more efficiently, which saves you money.

What else should your maintenance tour include? For ideas, take a look at our free report, "Give Your Home a Spring Checkup," available on our Facebook Page for a limited time!

To Replace or Not to Replace

With temperatures in low digits like they are now, our heaters and furnaces begin to seem like one of the best inventions ever. Truly, the development of home comfort systems was more than just a good idea. They’re actually life-savers during the harshest weather days.

We always tell friends that maintaining your system year after year does two important things: it helps lengthen the life of the system itself, and it helps improve its energy-efficiency. After all, the quality of your system is directly related to the quantity of energy dollars you spend. And, for wintertime especially, system maintenance alerts you to lurking dangers, such as the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from faulty equipment.

Even so, no matter how well you maintain your equipment, at some point, replacement time comes. If you think that’s true for your home, we’ve got some important things we want you to know.

We’ve compiled a free report with good guidance on how and when to make a sound decision about your home comfort system: “To Replace or Not to Replace.”

In the meantime, stay warm. And call us if you need us!