If you’re looking at installing a new furnace in your home, now is a great time to do it. You can get a tax credit from the government for buying a high-efficiency furnace, but you may need to know a little bit about how furnaces are rated so that you can make the best possible choice for your home.
The most obvious rating for furnaces is the one assigned by the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. This rating basically looks at the percentage of heat produced for every dollar’s worth of fuel that your furnace consumers. Today, all furnaces have to be at least 78% efficient, which means that 78% of the fuel that is consumed by your furnace actually goes to heat your home.
Obviously, then, the higher the AFUE rating of the furnace you choose, the more money the furnace will save you. If you buy an 80% efficient furnace, you’ll lose 20% of your fuel costs into empty space, and if you buy a 90% efficient furnace, you’ll only waste 10% of your energy costs. Chances are likely that a furnace that’s more than a decade old will be losing you more than 20% of your energy costs, so a new high-efficiency furnace can save you a lot of money.
While a furnace’s rating is really important, it isn’t the only important thing that you should consider when selecting a furnace. For instance, furnaces consume not only oil or natural gas but also electricity, which runs their fans and motors. Different furnaces will consume different amounts of electricity, so buying a furnace that is not only efficient with your gas or oil but also with your electricity can save you money on your energy bills.
One of the most electrically efficient types of furnaces is one with a variable speed motor. These motors help precisely control the flow of the air in your home by turning off and on or moving at different speed during different times. These types of motors can save you lots of money on your electric bill.
Another way to save energy is to find a furnace that has two-stage heating, which means that it puts out high heat on very cold days and lower heat on milder days. Most of the time, the furnace will run at the lower heat output, which means that it will use less energy on these days.
Combining the actual AFUE ratings of the furnaces you’re choosing with the knowledge of its electrical efficiency and the type of heating that it offers can help you make the best choice on an energy-efficient furnace. You can basically save yourself even more money by doing the research on the type of furnace you’re buying rather than simply buying a furnace that happens to have a high energy-efficiency rating. Even some Energy Star rated furnaces could cause your electrical bills to rise – or at least not to fall when you replace your furnace – so be sure that you look at all the aspects of your furnace before you buy a new one.
There’s no doubt about it: air conditioning is expensive. Paying to keep your home environment cool all summer can take major chunks out of your bank account, but there are ways that you can alleviate this problem by using your energy more efficiently. Energy-efficient air conditioning isn’t just about buying a whole new system; it is also about learning to use the system that you have efficiently.
1. Set the Thermostat High
It may seem uncomfortable to walk into a house that is only a few degrees cooler than the outside world, but running your air conditioner to shreds by setting your thermostat at seventy degrees all summer is ridiculous. Then you just end up needing to put on long sleeves and pull out blankets when you’re in the house, as your light, short summer clothes are uncomfortable then. Instead of having a freezing home, simply set your thermostat high and leave it up higher when no one is home during the day.
2. Use a Dehumidifier
Most people know that dry heat is way easier to endure than humid heat, which is why many people in sunny, dry Arizona will walk around in the summer quite comfortable in long sleeves while people in Florida take off all the clothes they decently can, even when it’s ten degrees cooler than Phoenix. If you want to avoid running your air conditioner simply to pull humidity out of the air, get a couple of dehumidifiers for your home, which can seriously help the problem.
3. Pull Out Hot Air
Trying to cool your home while firing up the stove and the oven can be a major annoyance. Using an exhaust fan can help this problem, but if you don’t have one of these over your stove, you can help cool your kitchen simply by setting up a fan on the floor. In conjunction with your air conditioner, this will help your kitchen stay comfortable even as you slave away.
4. Shade When It’s Needed
You may already be aware that pulling the curtains over your south-facing windows on those hot summer days can make your home more comfortable by several degrees, but did you know that shading your air-conditioning unit can help it run more efficiently? If you get to choose where to put your A/C unit, you should place it on the shady north side of your home. If not, plant trees or tall grass around the unit, which can help it stay cooler, working more efficiently. Besides this, the plants will shade your home, keeping it naturally cooler, and hide the air conditioning unit from sight.
5. Buy an Energy-Efficient Unit
If you’re really struggling to keep up with the electricity bills during the summer, it may be that you need a new air conditioning unit. Energy-efficient air conditioning when used in conjunction with all these other energy-saving ideas could help you cool your home more efficiently, and buying a new unit could very well save you hundreds of dollars a year.
