When colder weather has you running the heat in your Dayton home most of the time, your utility bills can increase significantly. You might have heard that closing the air vents in unoccupied rooms can reduce your heating costs and keep you feeling warmer during winter, but how accurate is this? Here’s a closer look at how closing your vents can affect your heating system.
Air Pressure
When you close a vent in an unused room, such as a bathroom, air pressure can build up inside. In order to balance this out, the room’s return vent pulls in colder air from outside through gaps and cracks around windows and baseboards. This makes the room with the closed vent colder, and that cool air can pass into adjacent rooms. When that happens, your furnace has to work harder to keep your home heated, which reduces its efficiency and leads to higher energy bills.
Leaks in Ductwork
Most homes have ductwork that leaks in certain areas, which can drive up utility bills. When you have closed air vents, these leaks can become even worse, which makes your heating bills increase even more. Your furnace is forced to run for longer periods of time in order to make up for the loss of heated air through leaks. This raises your utility bills and also creates additional wear and tear on your heating system, which can shorten its life span considerably.
Improving Energy Efficiency
Keeping some air vents closed won’t help your home become more energy efficient, but there are other options available. Opening all of the vents on the lower level of your home all the way and partially closing the ones on the upper level can help ensure that your home is heated enough while also preventing your furnace from running too long. You can also have adjustments to your heating system made with the help of an HVAC professional.
If your furnace needs a tuneup before freezing temperatures hit, please contact Ace Hardware Home Services about our Comfort Assurance Program. We provide dependable heating and cooling services in the Dayton area.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
Credit/Copyright Attribution: “Felix Mizioznikov/Shutterstock”
