Which is the best way to save money on heat?

I used to think it saved money to lower the thermostat when I left the house but a former landlord told me that raises the cost of heating because the heater must then work harder to get to the higher temperature when it's turned back up. My furnace is natural gas so which is the correct way to save money, lowering the thermostat or keeping a constant temperature?|||Heat loss is based on temperature differential. Long furnance cycles in general are more efficient than short cycles. For these reasons it is more efficient to turn down thermostat when leaving. An exception is when using a heat pump (cannot perform a large temperature swing, so turns on more expensive backup heat).





Check out an energy star thermostat at the hardware store. It is not one with a fixed temperature, it is one that turns down the temperature automatically when you are away.|||I have found my little CZ Infrared heater to have saved me not only money but effort. only other source of heat was our wood stove. The electricity I used was still less than the wood. would have cost. It鈥檚 as safe as a light bulb. www.czinfrared.com

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|||Your furnace does not know whether or not it is working hard. The less it runs, the cheaper it costs and ultimately the less wear and tear on the heating system.





(If I knew I wanted a hot pot of water when I got home from work, I wouldn't put it on the stove to warm all day long for fear that my stove would work too hard to heat the water when I actually wanted to use it).|||move south|||Your landlord is wrong. It takes more energy to heat your house all day when you are not home than to warm it up when you get home. That is the basis of programmable thermostats.


Other ways to reduce your heating costs are installing insulation, especially in the attic. Sealing air leaks around doors and windows. , Double pane windows. Making sure the joints in your heating ducts are properly sealed/taped. The small things do add up.