Cutting Costs in your Home - Continued

If you are going to be gone from your home over the weekend, turn the heat down to sixty. This is still warm enough to keep your pipes from freezing yet cool enough that you are not spending a lot on heat while you are gone.

Do not turn your thermostat up a lot, meaning don’t turn it more than five degrees at any given time. You need to be a little patient in letting your home warm up if you are really cold. Turning the heat way up, is going to spend way more energy than you need. 

Turn your hot water down. If you have a gas or electric water heater, you don’t need it about 120 degrees. If you have a timer on your hot water tank, you could consider having your water turned off or down lower while you are gone during the day. Turning the temperature down below one hundred when you are gone during the day, not using hot water is going to save you lots of money!

If you have air coming in around your doors or windows, put up heavy drapes, put in new weather stripping, and put plastic up around these areas for the winter months. When you allow the cold air in, you are just spending more in heating than you really have to!