Whether you’re ready or not, the cold weather will soon be here in Mooresville. When the temperature drops, it’s good to know you have a furnace that can help keep your home warm. Sometimes, though, you may receive an unexpectedly high utility bill when using your home’s furnace. This makes the prospect of keeping your home warm a little less enjoyable. At Putnam Mechanical, we often receive calls from customers looking for answers to their high utility costs, and these are the problems that most often lead to the extra costs.
Undiscovered Air Leak
As your home loses heated air, your furnace has to run to replenish that air to keep your home at a stable temperature. Therefore, if your home has one or more undiscovered air leaks, it will be losing air faster than expected, causing your furnace to run more often.
Although you can try to seal these cracks on your own by caulking around windows and doors, the best way to discover all of the air leaks in your home is to have Putnam Mechanical run a blower door test. This test pulls high volumes of air through your home to reveal the exact location of air leaks both big and small so that you can repair them and improve your home’s energy efficiency.
Improper Thermostat Settings
Even on a sunny day, it can take a while for your home to warm up. Therefore, if you maintain the same thermostat settings throughout the day, you could be running your furnace more often than necessary. That’s why a programmable thermostat from Putnam Mechanical is so important when it comes to saving energy.
These devices allow you to select temperature settings throughout the day so that your furnace can turn off and on automatically. This means that you can keep your home at a lower temperature when you’re away and then automatically increase the temperature by the time you return home.
Unexpectedly Cold Weather
In this time when many people are working from home, there may be periods when you don’t venture outside much, especially when the weather is inhospitable. This pattern of living can cause you to miss just how cold it’s getting outside. Of course, the colder the weather is, the more frequently your furnace will need to run to maintain your home’s temperature.
Therefore, before you assume that your furnace has a problem that requires the attention of Putnam Mechanical, take a moment to look back at the temperatures from the last month. If you discover a major difference when comparing this year’s temperatures to last year’s temperatures and the average temperatures for your area, that could be the cause of your higher heating bills.
Clogged Ducts
When it comes to high heating bills, clogged ducts are especially problematic because they can stick around and cause higher cooling bills, as well. Therefore, if you suspect that you might have clogged ducts, it’s important to have Putnam Mechanical take a look at them as soon as possible. Clogged cuts happen when dust settles in certain locations within a duct and then collects in that location over time.
Eventually, this can restrict airflow to the point that certain areas in your home aren’t being heated correctly. Since less warm air is reaching its intended destination, your home will take longer to reach the desired temperature, which will result in those unexpectedly higher utility bills.
Bad Flame
In a gas furnace, the burner is one of the most important components. Unfortunately, over time, the burner’s nozzles can become clogged due to soot from the combustion process. This can lead to inefficient combustion, most easily recognized by a yellow or white flame coming from the burner.
When this occurs, the burner won’t be able to heat the heat exchanger efficiently, meaning that the air that’s released into your home won’t be as warm. Beyond inefficient heating, a bad burner can release carbon monoxide into your home, meaning that it’s vital to have Putnam Mechanical repair or replace the burner as soon as you notice the condition.
Here to Help You Save Money
At Putnam Mechanical, we believe our customers deserve efficient heating and cooling systems that help to lower their utility costs. That’s why we offer maintenance, repair, and installation services for air conditioners and furnaces, in addition to multiple electrical services to keep your home safe and well-lit. As a business that’s rated A+ with the Better Business Bureau, you can be sure we’ll do what it takes to take care of you because that’s what we’ve been doing since our founding. Join our growing list of satisfied customers by calling us at Putnam Mechanical today.
