Owning a home entails a lot of choices you have to make about maintaining and improving it. Over the last decade, the importance of energy-efficiency upgrades has moved to the forefront in the face of rising energy costs. Most of the energy you consume inside your home is used for heating it, and projects that improve the home’s ability to resist thermal changes and reduce heating bills are time and money well spent.

The winter months are fast approaching. With the bitter cold of Minnesota, it is important to consider ways of optimizing furnace efficiency to ensure that you stay warm all winter long. If you have a high-efficiency furnace, much of that investment will go to waste if you skimp on efficiency measures in your home. If saving some money this winter sounds good to you, check out these ways to improve your furnace’s efficiency:

As if the cold and snow in the Twin Cities area weren’t enough to deal with, many homeowners wonder how they’ll be managing energy bills when the thermometer drops. Your home heating bill is likely the most money you spend on any of your utilities, and employing these tips can help you reduce costs without sacrificing comfort. 

Purchasing a new furnace is a sizable investment that will affect energy expenses and comfort in your Twin Cities home for many years. In order to leverage the greatest return on investment, which is the actual lifetime costs of owning and operating the furnace (not just the initial costs), take the right approach by educating yourself about the two-step replacement process – selection and installation.

Have you checked your new furnace AFUE rating? Annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) ratings are commonly used in the HVAC industry to gauge how efficient a furnace converts the energy in its fuel into heat over the course of a year. If you’re thinking about buying a new furnace, pay attention to this particular rating.

A programmable thermostat setback allows you to save energy with energy-saving setbacks when you’re not home or are sleeping at night. Some people,however, think that they aren’t actually saving energy, rather just prolonging the inevitable energy use when they have to bring the temperature back up in the house.

This is not the case, and even when you run your furnace again to increase the temperature, you’ll still save money, as long as you program and use the thermostat correctly.

An HVAC system service plan to cover the heating and cooling equipment in your Twin Cities Metro area home is something you may have considered but haven’t as yet obtained. Some folks mistakenly believe that if they have a home warranty policy that it will cover their furnace or air conditioner in the event of a breakdown, however, in many cases this just isn’t true. The beauty of a good HVAC system service plan is that not only does it come to your aid if your equipment does break down but, in most cases, with the regular maintenance provided, chances of a breakdown are significantly lessened.

Your ductwork is a vital component of your HVAC system, delivering conditioned air to your living space in order to keep your Twin Cities home comfortable. Ductwork problems can cause issues with airflow, robbing your home of energy and comfort. Here are five common duct issues to look for in your home:

Don’t count yourself alone if you’ve never heard of a furnace ECM. The ECM (electronically commutated motor) is an upgrade from the standard PSC motor (permanent split capacitor). It differs from PSC motors in that it uses direct current instead of alternating current, which the ECM converts automatically. The ECM is also brushless, increasing its durability. 

You may have heard that closing off rooms to conserve energy helps lower your heating bills. This was true at one time, when furnace technology was relatively simple and houses were not well insulated or sealed.