It only took a pandemic for me to quit complaining and actually do something about HVAC heating costs.
- It’s embarrassing to admit that but sometimes the truth is a bit embarrassing.
Once we went into lockdown last year, I just knew that this was going to be a situation that would last a long time. Then, my wife and I were relegated to working from home. This was a blow in an economic sense because we are both in sales. Again, I knew that this was going to be a long year. So as we were working from the relative security of our HVAC controlled home, we went into cost cutting mode. One of those targets was what we spend on HVAC heating & cooling. First up was the summer. We normally just set the thermostat and leave it. But that’s wasteful because we are overcooling the house. So this year, we pulled the drapes to stop direct sunlight heating. And we made sure that thermostat was never more than fifteen degrees cooler than the outside. It saved some real coin over the summer. But it’s the heating costs that really get us in this area. So I spent a few months making sure that I sealed the house up just as tight as possible. That meant replacing some weather stripping, re-insulating a few window and caulking any gap I could find. I even added another level of insulation in the attic. I was stunned by the savings. We saved hundreds of dollars this winter and all it took was getting a bit proactive.