Thursday, January 29, 2009

5 Ways to Save on your heating bill

Here is a short story done by "The Today Show" on 5 ways to save money on your heating bill. It talks about programmable thermostats, high efficient furnaces, water heaters, and window caulking. They talk about installing your own programmable thermostat, but be careful because the wire colors don't always match like they say. You could end up with your a/c running in the middle of winter. Which that can cause major damage to the a/c. You may want to call a heating company to install one.

Today Show Link

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Amish Heaters and Edenpure Heaters

Amish heaters are selling like hot cakes. But do they really help you save 50% on your heating bill? See the Fox news report what they found.

Amish heaters are actually built in China. Electric portable heaters will not save money versus heating with gas. You can go to the hardware store and buy a 1500 watt electric heater for about $20 that will do the same as the Amish heater. If you turn your house down to 50 degrees and just put the Amish heater in the room you are in, yes you will lower your heating bill. But you will also not be very comfortable in your home. Plus you have to be careful you don't turn the heat back to far and freeze a water pipe.

Maybe you can strap the heater to your back when you walk around the house. or not.... If you are looking to save on heating cost look at a quality installed 95% Efficient furnace or a heat pump system. You can easly save hundreds of $$ per year and even over $1000 depending on your current system. Plus you can take advantage of the $200 IRS tax credit for installing a new 95% furnace.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Furnace Energy Tax Credit

2009 has brought back the home heating energy tax credit. This was pushed by many organization's but failed to happen. But then the 2nd draft of the bail out bill came and this past with it. So for homeowners who replace there gas furnace with a 95% Efficient model they will get $150. If the furnace has an energy efficient motor (commonly called variable speed) you get another $50. You can get details on this program at http://www.comfortmatters.com/webapp/GetPage?pid=511.

This money is a direct credit. Meaning if you are getting $500 back on your taxes at the end of 2009 you will now get $700. There are other items you can earn energy tax credit like home insulating. But the max for a household is $500.

Don't forget to check if you local natural gas supplier has rebates also. For example you can get up to $150 from Centerpoint Energy in Minnesota.