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How to Prevent Home Heat Loss

When you open your utility bills during the winter, do you break out in a cold sweat?  Wish you lived further south?  Think about getting a second job?

Well, you can put those concerns at least partially aside by doing a little detective work or, if you feel so inclined, hiring a professional to do it for you.  The idea is to determine if and where heat is escaping your home, and how to block any such escape routes you might find.

Here are some great places to start your investigation, and all with a goal to taking a big bite out of your home heating bills:

• Attic Insulation – If attic insulation isn’t bouncing the rising heat back into your living quarters, then it’s doing the exact opposite, i.e., allowing heat to continue travel upward, right out through your roof. That’s why you should check your attic insulation to make sure it covers your whole attic without gaps and is it at least 6” thick.

• Window and Door Insulation – Older windows and doors don’t have the insulating powers of more recently built products.  If now’s not the time to replace them, you have other options, like thermal drapes, thick shades, caulking, and weather stripping.

• Wall Insulation – Forty-five percent of the warm air that escapes your home exits through your walls.  Remember, you don’t have to insulate all your walls all at once.  Start with the colder rooms in your house, like those over your garage. And no, you don’t have to tear down your existing walls to add insulation behind them.

• Other Holes in the Walls – Your fireplace opening is so large, it practically sports a flashing “Exit” sign pointing the way out for warm air.  To stop that flow, purchase a pair of air tight doors.  Next, move your hand around wall sockets and switches.  If you feel any cool air, you can add insulation inside them to stop yet one more source of heat loss.

Here’s another great way to help reduce your home heating costs: with a heating system tune-up and inspection from Messmer Mechanical, your local home heating professionals. With the kind of annual preventative maintenance we perform, you also can look forward to fewer repairs and a longer lifespan for your heating system, so why not call today to schedule service.