Listening to the wrong advice regarding your home heating can cost you money and a great deal of time as you try to troubleshoot things when you end up being colder or hotter than you’d like.
As the cost of heating your home increases, it’s best to avoid common home heating myths you should never believe to help keep your energy expenses as low as possible.
Here are 11 such home heating myths you shouldn’t believe.
Duct tape is good for sealing duct leaks
Despite its name, duct tape has long been known to actually be a poor method of sealing duct leaks. While air duct leakage is a major component of energy loss within the home, using duct tape to seal your duct leaks and gaps is actually a very low success option.
The problem with duct tape is that studies have shown that when applied by homeowners, the constant alternating of hot air in the winter and cold air in the summer supplied through your duct work causes the tape to quickly lose its adhesiveness. It becomes loose, the gaps and cracks reopen and the air flow does the rest to blow the tape off and you’re back to square one.
While duct sealing is a great idea to save money on energy costs and increase your efficiency, using duct tape is not the recommended route. Contact a local HVAC specialist or conduct a paid energy audit to see where your ducts are leaking to confirm the next steps.
Wood-burning fireplaces are efficient
The sounds. The smell. The crackling of wood. Wood-burning fireplaces have a great deal of appeal in theory especially if you’ve never had one and think they are cool to have.
Then there’s the reality: Buying and lugging firewood in. Cleaning the fireplace after each use. Buying more firewood. Paying to clean the chimney each year. Hopefully you remembered to let your home insurance company know you have a fireplace because they want to know about it so they can raise your premiums due to the added risk.
While a fireplace adds ambiance, it usually comes with a price(s), most notably the extra work mentioned above and not to mention the fact that it generally only heats one room to the detriment of others in the home.
Wood-burning isn’t the most environmentally friendly option either. If you were to install a wood-burning heating option, a higher efficiency wood-burning stove would be a better option.
You don’t need a back up plan for heating
Pellet stoves are increasingly popular options for heating because it enables you to burn wood (pellets) but without having to lug pieces of wood into the home. Given that pellet stoves automatically feed pellets into the system to burn, it requires very little work on your part. But this automation is powered by electricity and when the power goes out like it did in Texas in January 2021
, a pellet stove – and an electric furnace – won’t operate. Even a gas furnace won’t run because the controls use electricity too.
In this case, a gas fireplace or even an old style wood fireplace would suffice because they will both supply heat in at least one room of the home while the power is out. Alternatively you may also consider buying a diesel generator as a backup in case of a power outage during a bad winter (or summer) storm.
Replacing windows pays for itself with energy savings
Replacing the windows in your home is something that will eventually be required. Windows typically last 15-20 years but at some point, the seals start to go which leads to air leakage in and out of the home, foggy windows and increased energy costs.
Replacing a single window costs around $650 on average so you can do the math and figure out how many windows you have in your home to be replaced to determine the total cost.
While you will have to replace windows due to necessity when the time comes, replacing them to save money on energy isn’t a wise investment decision. The expected energy savings from window replacement will take years and possible decades to pay back and you may not even be living in the home when that point is reached.
Your best bet to save money right away on heating is to ensure your home is properly insulated and that gaps and air leaks from the attic, doors and windows are sealed.
Closing vents in some rooms will save on energy costs
Closing a register (vent) in a room that isn’t being used is a touchy subject. Some people advise against it. Some say it’s a good idea. One thing is for certain: It won’t necessarily save you money on reduced energy costs.
Closing off some registers completely can do more harm than good as you end up producing warm air that can’t properly be distributed as closed vents force the air to go elsewhere. The heating system becomes unbalanced and you might end up making your furnace work harder as a result.
I noticed that one register in our living room produces a very strong flow of warm air when fully open, more so than other rooms on the top floor of the house. Why? It’s the register located directly above the furnace. So I partially closed it off to direct more heat upstairs which I noticed was somewhat lacking in air flow since it’s farthest away from the furnace.
Your best bet? If you have a room in your home that isn’t being used, slightly close off the register but leave it partially open to allow some heat in and close the door to the room. Make sure that other registers in your home are fully open so that all available heat is being distributed elsewhere.
A working furnace doesn’t need to be serviced
Even a working furnace should be serviced and on a yearly basis at that. Check with your furnace manufacturer but it’s generally suggested that a yearly servicing shortly before winter starts is your best bet. Getting your furnace serviced yearly by a trusted and qualified HVAC specialist helps to:
- Prevent future breakdowns by finding problems before they become bigger ones.
- Reduce your energy bill by up to 30% by tuning up your furnace and ensuring it runs efficiently.
- Maintain your warranty as some furnace manufacturers may require it as a condition of continued warranty coverage.
- Ensure dangerous carbon monoxide (CO) leaks are prevented or at least caught early.
- Ensure that the furnace is actually ready to run during the only time of the year it’s needed: when temperatures drop and the weather gets bad.
Don’t get fooled by discount furnace deals on various group buying websites however. There’s a difference between a voucher deal you bought online and a full furnace inspection which should include careful inspection of venting, wiring, heat exchanger, burner, drainage, blower, filter and other components to ensure your furnace is properly operating. Such a service visit will most cost $100 – $300.
The average furnace repair charge is around $300 alone for issues such as relay switch, igniter or thermostat replacement.
Furnace filters don’t need to be changed regularly
A furnace air filter typically needs to be replaced every 3 months. When new they are completely white and over time will turn gray with dirt and eventually darker if you don’t replace them in time.
You may want to replace your filter sooner and buy higher quality models with a higher MERV rating if you:
- Have allergies in your household.
- Live in an area that tends to be dusty or polluted.
- Run your furnace fan on Auto all the time so that air is constantly passing through the filter.
- Notice that the filter has gone from white to brown or black before the 3 month period.
- Have had construction in your home involving dust, wood debris, drywalling, painting and things of that nature.
While reusable and washable furnace filters can save money, they tend not to have the highest MERV rating and may be unsuitable for those with allergies or who require better air filtration.
While air furnace filters began as a method of protecting the furnace against dust and debris getting into the system and damaging the blower and other components, newer higher end filters are sold that filter out allergens, exhaust fumes, candle wax and other pollutants from the air you breathe that anyone in your household can benefit from.
Cranking the thermostat changes the temperature quickly
When you turn the thermostat all the way to the hottest or coldest setting, it doesn’t impact how quickly the temperature in your home changes one way or the other. When you set the thermostat, it’s this setting that the furnace (winter use) or air conditioner (summer use) aims for and it operates as normal until it has reached that temperature.
Cranking the thermostat to one extreme or the other only increases the chance that you overdo it and exceed the desired temperature if you forget to adjust the thermostat back down again. Simply set the thermostat at the desired temperature and the system will reach that point as soon as possible given its design.
Ceiling fans only work in the summer
Fans don’t make a room warmer or cooler but they trick the body into feeling like this is the case depending on which way the fan is turning.
Ceiling fans typically have two directional settings:
Clockwise (reverse): This is the winter setting. This pushes warm air near the ceiling (since warm air rises) down to the ground to give the feeling that the room is slightly warmer than it actually is.
Counterclockwise (forward): This is the summer setting. It pushes cool air down towards the ground so it’s a great addition to a bedroom as this fan setting can make your body feel like the room is slightly cooler than it actually is.
Fans use very little electricity compared to other energy-using devices like your furnace and AC and while they don’t replace the usage of either one at different times of the year, they do complement them for your benefit.
You can save money with a programmable thermostat
You can save money with a programmable thermostat if it’s used correctly. Modern thermostats have very sophisticated scheduling and other features that many homeowners often don’t take advantage of. This can be of particular use when you are away from home for hours at a time (work, school), are on vacation or simply want to schedule the thermostat to be higher and lower and certain times of the day.
Specifically, it’s a good idea to figure out what your household can live with in terms of temperature settings during the day and then reduce the heat (winter) overnight. Also set the thermostat several degrees higher (summer) at night during the hotter months. Take advantage of phone app functionality if available to adjust your thermostat remotely if needed.
While many people simply suggest raising or lowering the thermostat several degrees to save money, it really depends on what people in your household want to live with, doesn’t it? The great thing about a programmable thermostat is that you can try different settings and settle on what makes sense for you and the people you live with.
If your home area has dynamic or time of use utility charges, you can work around that too with a programmable thermostat.
NOTE: Some people notice that with a programmable thermostat their energy bills actually go up, at least to start with. In winter for example, many people will manually turn down their thermostat before going to bed and then when they wake up, they’ll manually turn it back up again. But with a programmable thermostat, they often decide to turn down the temperature at bedtime as before but set the heat to start up an hour or two before they wake up so that house is warm upon awakening.
The net result is that they’re running the furnace an extra 1 – 2 hours per day with the programmable thermostat.
In general terms, you can expect that every 1 degree that you raise or lower your thermostat can add or subtract up to 3% on a monthly energy bill.
Using space heaters in colder rooms is cheaper than using central heating
Space heaters often carry a fire risk more so than other types of heating especially cheaper ones that may not have an automatic shutoff feature. But they also tend to be less energy efficient than other forms of heating since they are powered with electricity which tends to be more expensive – often significantly depending on where you live – than natural gas.
Space heaters can also mess with your thermostat’s ability to keep the entire home warm if your space heater is used near the thermostat. By heating a room near the thermostat with a space heater, the room temperature gets heated which tells the thermostat the house is warm enough and turns the furnace off. Over several hours, the other rooms of the house get cooler because the furnace remains shut off, thinking that the desired temperature has been reached.
The major concern with space heating is the fire risk. Space heaters should never be left unattended as they are the second largest cause of fires and fire injury within the home according to the National Fire Protection Association.
While space heating can be used in some cases to heat individual rooms, they should be used sparingly for safety and cost reasons.