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Finally got my heating bill down after 6 months of guessing wrong
Honestly I kept cranking my thermostat up but my apartment in Chicago was still freezing. Turns out I was blocking the vents with a big couch and didn't realize it for like 4 months. Moved the couch 3 feet and my bill dropped by $60 last month. Has anyone else missed something obvious like that in their own place?
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west.casey11d ago
Hold on, @annajenkins, I gotta push back a little on that closing doors thing. In my experience, shutting off rooms that aren't being used can actually help, especially if you have a big house or a system that's too small for the space. I had a buddy in a drafty old ranch who closed off his spare bedroom and his home office, and his furnace finally kept up without running all day. Your mileage may vary though, because it really depends on how the return air is set up. If you have a return vent in every bedroom, yeah, closing the door will choke the system. But if you only have one big return in the hallway, shutting a door can redirect that air to the rooms you're actually in. Take that with a grain of salt, but a forced air system is all about balancing supply and return, and sometimes a closed door is the right move.
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sagecooper11d ago
Same thing happened to my buddy in Denver except his problem was the opposite. He kept closing all the bedroom doors thinking it would trap heat but it actually messed up the airflow big time. Once he propped them all open his place finally warmed up and his bill went down lol.
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Oh man, that's funny how simple stuff like that can make such a difference. I actually watched a video from some HVAC guy on YouTube who said closing doors in a house with forced air heating can mess with the pressure and make the furnace work harder. He explained that the system needs air to flow back to the return vents, and blocking it off just causes problems. Did you notice any other weird issues after you propped them open?
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