How to Harness the Lost Heat in Your Home to Lower Your Heating Bill

Heating costs out of control? You're not alone. Many of us are struggling to meet basic heating costs as prices continue to climb while our paychecks are getting smaller.

Our family is in "save more, spend less" mode for 2011 and part of our savings strategy is changing how we heat our home. These days, the thermostat is set to 65 when the family is home in the evening and 55 the other eighteen hours a day. While this sounds extreme, we've discovered that for every degree dropped on the thermostat, our heating bill is lowered by 3% as well.

Since I'm a stay-at-home work-at-home Mom, 55 degrees is a bit for chilly for me. To keep warm in my office, I use a portable heater which consumes far less energy than my furnace. As far as the rest of the home, I've learned to keep it warm by harnessing lost heat.

What is lost heat?. Every time you use an appliance or take a shower, you generate heat. Harnessing that heat simply means letting it escape into your home instead of evaporating through the ceiling. Here's four easy ways to harness the lost heat in your room and lower your heating bill at the same time.

1. Reroute the dryer exhaust so it goes into your home. Dryers generate lots of heat, all of which is ducted outdoors through a vent. One way to harness heat is to disconnect the flexible tubing from the vent and point it into your home instead.

2. Leave the bathroom door after a shower. Hot showers generate steam which can add both heat and moisture to your home. Our family is now in the habit of leaving the bathroom door open after showering to let heat escape into the halls.

3. Make a hot breakfast. Since we don't turn up the heat in the morning, our uninsulated old-timey kitchen can get downright brisk. One way to heat up the kitchen is to make a hot breakfast for your family. The heat generated by the oven and burners is usually enough to take the edge off the cold in our kitchen and keep it warm until my family leaves for school & work.

4. Strategic curtain opening. In addition to being decorative, curtains & drapes have insulating properties. In the morning, I'll keep the curtains shut to prevent cold air from entering my home through the windows. But, once the sun starts shining, the south and southwest drapes are opened for harnessing that passive solar energy as well.