Prepare Your Greater Cincinnati Home for Winter With These Fall Maintenance To-Dos
If you aren’t taking the opportunity to perform routine fall maintenance on your home, you’re missing out on a chance to save a significant amount of money on your monthly energy bill.
Simply having proper temperature control systems inside your house can lead to savings of up to 20 percent on your heating and cooling costs, according to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI).
To make fall maintenance as painless as possible, here are the three most important tasks to focus on:
- Eliminate drafts – Nothing can waste heat in the winter quite like a draft from a window or door. Drafts are easy to find (especially if the indoor and outdoor temperatures are significantly different) by slowly outlining the window or door frame with your hand. If you find any drafts, it’s easy and cost-effective to apply caulk to the area. While you can do this yourself, hiring a professional HVAC technician can also ensure you don’t have air leaks in other areas of your home.
- Get your heating system inspected – In winter you rely heavily on your home’s heating system, so any inefficiencies will have cumulative costs that could be avoided with simple annual HVAC maintenance. A licensed heating contractor will carefully inspect the system, performing routine tune-ups and looking for potential issues that can be remedied.
- Change the settings of your ceiling fan – One of the problems with warm air is that it rises. By switching the direction of your ceiling fan to clockwise in the colder months, you can create an upward draft that helps circulate the warm air through the room. Keep in mind that a low speed is best to create that gentle draft that pushes the warm air out and back down into the occupied areas.
If you have a home in the greater Cincinnati area and need help with any of your fall maintenance tasks, contact the pros at Apollo Home Heating, Cooling and Plumbing.
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