When you get that first energy bill and you realize that you’re paying way too much money to heat your house, your first thought is probably that something must be wrong with your home heating system — particularly your furnace, or maybe the air ducts in your house. While broken furnaces and clogged air ducts are often the major causes of a malfunctioning home heating system, there’s another tiny factor that could be causing a lot of trouble: your thermostat.
Before calling up your local furnace repair or HVAC repair services, take a look at these three points — and then take a look at your thermostat — and see if you can actually take care of the problem by yourself in a few simple steps:
- Before anything else, make sure to check the battery in your thermostat! Most newer digital thermostats will have a button or message center that alerts you when the battery is low, but it’s easy to miss this if you aren’t looking for it. If your furnace is sounding like it’s struggling quite a bit, it could be because the thermostat’s battery is losing juice and the thermostat itself isn’t working properly with your home heating system.
- Although buying the newest digital thermostats may seem like a good idea at the time — especially since they all promise to create a more efficient home heating and cooling system while lowering your energy bills substantially — it’s important that you pair the correct thermostat with the particular furnace in your house. While it’s possible to do all of this research on your own, many homeowners choose to go through an HVAC service to ensure that they’re getting the best thermostat for their own particular home heating system.
- And finally, if you’ve checked that your thermostat is working fine and that it’s compatible with your furnace — but you’re still consistently paying too much on your energy bills — make sure that your thermostat is placed in a good location inside your home. It seems like a really small detail, but when your thermostat isn’t in a good spot, it won’t have an accurate reading of the temperature inside. Make sure that your thermostat is out of direct sunlight and away from any drafty windows or doors.
If you’re still having trouble regulating your heating system after double- and triple-checking that your thermostat is working properly, don’t hesitate to call up an HVAC repair service for a system inspection!
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