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Applicance
Service Plans
Heating
& Cooling Energy Tips
How BTU's
and EER's work
Maintain
Heating/Cooling Equip
Natural
Gas Safety Tips
Furnace
Efficiency Ratings
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Introduction
Heating and cooling your home uses more energy and drains more
energy dollars than any other system in your home. Typically,
44% of your utility bill goes for heating and cooling. No matter
what kind of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system
you have in your house, you can save money and increase comfort
by properly maintaining and upgrading your equipment. Remember,
though, an energy efficient furnace or air-conditioner alone will
not have as great an impact on your energy bills as using the
whole house approach. By combining proper equipment maintenance
and upgrades with appropriate insulation, weatherization and thermostat
setting, you can cut your energy bills in half.
All major appliances including gas furnaces, boilers, air conditioners
and heat pumps sold in California meet the Title-24 energy efficiency
"standards." If you are thinking about purchasing a new central
furnace, please check out our Appliance Database that lists the
most energy-efficient models. This database will eventually be
interactive allowing you to compare models.
Heating Tips
- Set your thermostat as low as it is comfortable.
- Clean or replace filters on furnaces once a month.
- Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters and radiators
as needed; make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting
or drapes. Use kitchen, bath and other ventilating fans wisely;
in just one hour, these fans can pull out a houseful of warmed
or cooled air. Turn fans off as soon as they have done the job.
- Keep draperies and shades open on south-facing windows during
the heating season to allow sunlight to enter your home; close
them at night to reduce the chill you may feel from >cold windows.
- Close an unoccupied room that is isolated from the rest of
the house such as in a corner and turn down the thermostat or
turn off the heating for that room or zone. Do not, however,
turn the heating off if it adversely affects the rest of your
system.
Heat Pumps
If you use electricity to heat your home, consider installing
an energy efficient heat pump system. Heat pumps are the most
efficient form of electric heating in moderate climates, providing
three times more heating than the equivalent amount of energy
they consume in electricity. There are three types of heat pumps:
air-to-air, water source and ground source. They collect heat
from the air, water or ground outside your home and concentrate
it for use inside. Heat pumps do double duty as a central air
conditioner. They can also cool your home by collecting the heat
inside your house and effectively pumping it outside. A heat pump
can trim the amount of electricity you use for heating as much
as 30% to 40%.
Heat Pump Tips
Do not set back the heat pump's thermostat manually if it causes
the electric resistance heating to come on. This type of heating,
which is often used as a backup to the heat pump, is more expensive.
Clean or change filters once a month or as needed and maintain
the system according to manufacturer's instructions.
Gas and Oil Systems
Gas furnaces are rated for efficiency with an Annual Fuel Utilization
Efficiency number, or an AFUE. According to the state's Energy
Efficiency Standards, Title 24, the minimum AFUE for central furnace
systems now sold in California is 0.78, which means that 78 percent
of the fuel used by the furnace actually reaches your home's duct
work as heat.
The higher the AFUE, the more efficient the furnace. AFUE numbers
in today's furnaces range from 0.78 to around 0.90. If you are
thinking about purchasing a new central furnace, please check
out our Appliance Database that lists the most energy-efficient
models.
Gas Furnace Tips
- Don't block registers, vents or heating units with furniture
or drapes. That makes your furnace work harder and uses more
energy.
- Consider installing a programmable thermostat. You can save
as much as 10% a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply
turning your thermostat back 10% to 15% for 8 hours with an
automatic setback or programmable thermostat.
- Using a programmable thermostat you can adjust the times you
turn on the heating or air-conditioning according to a pre-set
schedule. As a result, you don't operate the equipment as much
when you are asleep or when the house or part of the house is
not occupied. Programmable thermostats can store and repeat
multiple daily setting (six or more temperature setting a day)
that you can manually override without affecting the rest of
the daily or weekly program. When purchasing a new thermostat,
look for the ENERGY STAR label (www.energystar.gov) and one
that allows you to easily use two separate programs; an "advanced
recovery" feature that can be programmed to reach the desired
temperature at a specific time; and a hold feature that temporarily
overrides the setting without deleting preset programs.
Air Conditioners
It might surprise you to know that buying a bigger room air-conditioning
unit won't necessarily make you feel more comfortable during the
hot summer months. In fact, a room air conditioner that's too
big for the area it is supposed to cool will perform less efficiently
and less effectively than a smaller, properly sized unit. This
is because room units work better if they run for relatively long
periods of time than if they are continually, switching off and
on. Longer run times allow air conditioners to maintain a more
constant room temperature. Running longer also allows them to
remove a larger amount of moisture from the air, which lowers
humidity and, more importantly, makes you feel more comfortable.
SEER is the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating. SEER rates the
efficiency during the cooling season. Look for a SEER rating of
13 or above.
Evaporative Coolers
Evaporative coolers may be installed as an alternative to air
conditioning, particularly in climates with very dry air. Evaporative
coolers provide mechanical cooling to a building by either direct
contact of air with water (direct evaporative cooler) or a combination
of a first-stage heat exchanger to pre-cool the air and a second
stage with direct air contact with water (indirect/direct evaporative
cooler).
Cooling Tips
- Whole house fans help cool your home by pulling cool air
through the house and exhausting warm air through the attic.
They are effective when operated at night and when the outside
air temperature is cooler than the inside.
- Set your thermostat as high as comfortably possible in the
summer. The less difference between the indoor and outdoor temperatures,
the lower your overall cooling bill will be.
- Don't set your thermostat at a colder temperature setting
than normal when you turn on your air conditioner. It will not
cool your home any faster and could result in excessive cooling
and therefor unnecessary expense.
- Set the fan speed on high except in very humid weather. When
it's humid set the fan speed on low. You'll get better cooling.
- Consider ceiling fans to spread the cooled air more effectively
through your home without greatly increasing your power use.
- Don't place lamps or TV sets near your air conditioning thermostat.
- Plant trees or shrubs to shade air-conditioning units but
not to block the airflow. A unit operating in the shade uses
as much as 10% less electricity than the same one operating
in the sun.
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