Household Heating And Saving Energy

By Tom Norman on June 11th, 2009

One of the first notable figures to appeal for the conservation of energy was former US President Jimmy Carter during the American oil crisis of the late seventies. His advice was for all Americans to turn their thermostats down in order to preserve heating fuel and duct cleaning.

Although this was said over thirty years ago, it still applies today, its the very simple concept of, the less energy used, the more will be conserved, and turning down the thermostat is probably the most simple and effective method of using less energy.

The heating of the larger areas in a house usually makes up the most expensive part of the overall energy bills in an average household. A simple step to reduce your overall bill by around 2% is simply to turn down your thermostat by just 1 degree.

Your boiler will have to keep a set difference between the outside tempertature and the inside temperatue. This can sometimes be a big difference, particularly in the winter months, and if at any time this can be reduced, it should be, even by one or two degrees because this will mean that the heating system has to be on for less time, therefore saving more energy.

Of course the main thing that will spring to mind when turning a thermostat down is how cold the house will be. Well, President Carter had an answer for this as well, he said put a sweater on!

This may feel difficult to keep up at first, but after your body gets used to the new temperature of your house it will adjust and get used to it, or wearing thick socks and a sweater will simply become a natural part of what you do at home.

During summer months, it can be tempting to have your air conditioning up high to keep the house cool, however these same principles of turning your thermostat down work the other way as well. If you turn your air conditioning temperature up a little so that it doesnt have to work as hard, then you will save considerably on energy.

To summarise, you should try to have the temperature of your house as close as you can to the temperature outside and adjusting your clothing appropriately so you can achieve this to a greater extent.