Because AAA Heating & Air Conditioning cares about helping our customers save money and improve the environment, we wanted to help you make sense of the ENERGY STAR® program and what it means for your heating or cooling system.  This is Part 4 of a 9 part series on the subject that is published every other Thursday.  If you missed our previous posts, you can find them here: AAA Heating & Air Conditioning ENERGY STAR blog posts

Programmable Thermostat

Programmable thermostats are ideal for people who are away from home during set periods of time throughout the week.  Through proper use, a programmable thermostat can save you about $180 every year in energy costs.  The US Environmental Protection Agency recommends that you do the following to get the greatest benefit from your thermostat:

• Install the thermostat away from heating or cooling registers, appliances, lighting, doorways, fireplaces, skylights and windows, and areas that receive direct sunlight or drafts.  Interior walls are best.
• Keep the thermostat set at energy saving temperatures for long periods of time, such as when no one is home and at bedtime.
• Resist the urge to override the preprogrammed settings.  Every time you do, you use more energy and may end up paying more on your energy bill.  The exception to this would be if you were to go on vacation and put the system on “hold” at a lower temperature.
• Change your batteries each year if your thermostat runs on batteries.

You can always call us at AAA Heating & Air Conditioning to install a programmable thermostat for you.  The most popular kind we sell is the programmable touchscreen thermostat, and many of our customers who have made the switch tell us they are extremely happy with how easy it is to use and how it has made their lives easier and more comfortable.  You can reach us at 253-630-9224.

Next time in our series on ENERGY STAR: Choosing the Right Equipment

Source: www.energystar.gov

Right now we’re in the middle of a stretch of extremely cold weather in our area.  Step outside your front door and you instantly want to head back where you came from!  In this cold weather, it’s important for you to keep a few things in mind about your heating system:

1) To maintain a comfortable temperature within your house, you might want to consider keeping your thermostat at one temperature during the coldest days & nights.  If you turn down the temperature when you leave your house or go to bed, it will take much longer than normal to bring it up to a comfortable level when you return.

2) If you have a 90% or 95% efficiency gas furnace, check those condensate lines!  Sometimes they can freeze up, causing minor flooding or your furnace to shut off entirely.  You can thaw any frozen lines simply with a hair dryer.  If you want any help, give us a call at 253-630-9224 and we can walk you through it over the phone.

3) Make sure all of the registers are open in your house.  It’s a good idea in this extreme cold to have them open even in rooms you don’t use so that the house heats evenly and you prevent the possibility of mold growing in a damp room.

4) Do you have fresh batteries in your thermostat?  Sometimes when people don’t have any heat, it’s a simple matter of changing the batteries in their thermostat.

Bonus Tip: If you celebrate Christmas and have a fresh Christmas tree, you will want to make sure that you close any registers next to the tree.  If you have warm air blowing on the tree from an open register, it can dry it out and become a fire hazard.