Which Is the Best Way to Heat Your Home?

Which Is the Best Way to Heat Your Home?

When the weather outside is cold, one of your highest priorities becomes keeping you and your family nice and toasty. The question, then, becomes what the best method is for heating your home. After all, though you want to be totally comfortable, you don’t want to have to pay more than you have to, so any efficiency you can gain would be a welcome addition. Here are a few great ways to keep your house warm.

Furnace

The most common way to heat homes is, of course, a furnace. Heated air is forced through ducts throughout the home, thus raising the temperature of the air in each room. Furnaces provide great whole-home heat that’s quick and easy. The key is getting a furnace that is as efficient as possible, so that even when you’re heating unoccupied rooms, it doesn’t waste a lot of energy. These efficiencies are expressed in percentages—as in the percentage of gas that is successfully used to create heat. An HVAC company like Morey Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, Inc. can take a look at your home to determine which system would suit you best and take care of any maintenance items on your current furnace.

Radiant Floor Heating

Radiant floor heating is great if you have tile or hardwood floors, but can be used under just about any type of flooring material. These systems typically utilize a series of pipes laid under the surface of the floor which have hot water circulated through them. This keeps your floor at an even, warm temperature, helping to keep your feet quite comfortable. Additionally, since heat rises, the heat created at the floor level can help keep the rest of your home warm, as well.

Heat Pump

If you live in a more moderate climate, a heat pump can offer all the heating capacity you need for a fraction of the cost. Heat pumps pull warm air from areas of lesser concentration to areas of greater concentration. This means that in the winter, it pulls air from the colder outside into your warmer house. Since it’s not actually changing the temperature of the air, a heat pump uses much less energy than more traditional heating methods. Plus, it can be used to keep your house cool during the warmer months, as well.

Solar Heating

The sun delivers an incredible amount of energy to the earth’s surface every day. To help make use of this energy for your home’s heating needs, solar heating may be employed. Solar heating uses solar panels to collect energy from the sun that is used to heat either a liquid or air that is then released to the home through a more conventional method. Beyond the upfront cost, this system essentially has no cost to operate, since you are using the free energy from the sun.

Mix It Up

For some homes, more than one type of heating may make the most sense. If you combine radiant floor heating and a furnace, for example, you can keep your floors warm using the radiant heating, only using the furnace on especially cold days when the radiant heating isn’t enough to keep the air warm. Utilizing more than one type of heating ensures you always have the heat you need, no matter what the weather’s like outside.  
Artcile submitted by Dixie Somers / Freelance Writer [email protected]

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