Winter Tips for your Vancouver Home.

Winter is upon us and Vancouver is quickly getting colder. Here are some quick tips on getting your Vancouver home ready for the season that will save you a bit of money and won't cost you an arm and a leg to implement.

• Probably the simplest thing you can do is bundle up and dress warmly. This is some old school advice you were probably told as a kid but it makes a lot of sense! You can save 2 percent on your heating bill for every 1°C you lower your thermostat. 
•  Make sure your Vancouver furnace filter is clean and replace it if necessary. Having a clean filter will help your furnace to heat your home more efficiently. 
• Plastic up windows and the entrance to your attic. It might look a little funny but its cheap and will help. Window kits are available at local retailers. 
• Turn your heat down at night while in bed. Lowering the thermostat setting before bedtime reduces your energy bills without affecting your comfort.
• Close heating vents going to rooms not often used. Have a guest bedroom no one ever uses, why heat the room if your not going to be spending time in it? 
• Put weather stripping around drafty doors and use silicone to seal up cracks around windows. The cost of improving the air-tightness of your Vancouver home with silicone is small compared with possible fuel savings and increased comfort.

Vancouver furnace service

The Importance of Air Circulation in your Vancouver Home

Cold air return grill

When it comes to a comfortable heating system good air circulation is essential. 

  

Unfortunately most Vancouver homes have been designed with inadequate cold air returns incorporated into their forced air heating systems. 

The cold air return is the plenum that carries air from large return grills in your home back to the furnace for reheating. If a home lacks sufficient cold air returns, air circulation will be decreased while comfort and air quality will be lessened.

A sure sign of poor air circulation is cold air pockets in the winter and hotter areas of the house in summer. As well as being important to your heating, good air circulation can help keep your home cool and comfortable in the summer when you have the furnace blower running.

The difficulty of adding more return air to your Vancouver house greatly depends on the structure of your home. That being said, if there is a will, there is a way and ducting can be added if it is truly needed.

Tips when buying a new furnace (Vancouver)

Here are a few quick tips if you find yourself needing to replace the furnace in your Vancouver home. 

The heating technician installing your new furnace should do a heat loss calculation in order to properly size your furnace. An over-sized furnace will cycle on and off more and be less efficient. You will also probably end up paying more money than you need to for the larger furnace.

The higher the AFUE rating the more efficient the furnace is. Most new Vancouver furnaces are 92 - 95% efficient. Greater efficiency means bigger long term savings on your hydro bills. A two stage furnace with variable speed motor will also provide greater comfort as well as the best efficiency.

The new furnace should come with a reliable warranty. It should be a brand name with a good reputation that you can research, not some builders special discounted at the local supplier.

Make sure your furnace installer is qualified. They should have a valid gas ticket and the company should be registered with the BC Safety Authority as a licensed gas contractor. Don't hesitate to ask their credentials.

Obtain a few estimates, don't just go with the first one. There are many good Vancouver heating companies, so shop around and find the best price out there!

Vancouver plumbing & heating

High Efficiency Furnace Vancouver

Ask around Vancouver and you'll find high efficiency furnaces are very popular these days. This is chiefly because of green initiatives, government rebates, and the long-term savings you can experience.
High efficiency furnaces in Vancouver have become the only logical choice, especially with the continuing rise in gas prices. 

New high efficiency furnaces are 90 to 97 per cent efficient. Put simply, a furnace at the high end of this range converts around 97 percent of the combusted natural gas to usable energy. By comparison, many of the older homes in Vancouver have dated furnaces that are only about 60 percent efficient. This means that 40 percent of the gas you purchase from Fortis to heat our home is wasted. If your old furnace is also over sized the loses could be even greater.

A high efficiency furnace with a variable speed motor is even more efficient. It will run quieter and should make your home more cozy with its ability to maintain a more even constant temperature.
Although a high efficiency furnace is a sizable investment, the long term savings and increased comfort leave most people very satisfied in their decision to upgrade when the time comes.