The winter is fun for all kinds of reasons. But energy bills isn’t one of them! That cozy holiday warmth can cost you and keep costing you until spring arrives next year.

Going without heat during a Canadian winter to keep expenses down really isn’t an option. But this doesn’t mean you can’t trim your utility bills to keep them more manageable.

In fact, the best time to start trimming is well before the holiday trees go up and need trimmings of their own!

You can start today to cut back on your winter heating expenses by scheduling your fall furnace inspection and maintenance tune-up. In this post, learn the dollars-and-cents details of how you can save all winter long by scheduling a fall tune-up.

Save $100 or More on Winter Energy Costs

The first and most obvious way you save by scheduling your fall furnace tune-up is what we have just mentioned – preventive maintenance boosts furnace efficiency and consequently lowers energy draw and expense.

But let’s look at specifics.

The average cost of a furnace safety inspection and tune-up is $200+. You can get your inspection done for $160 by enrolling in our annual maintenance plan.

The average cost of heating a Canadian family home in winter is around $1,438 (61 percent) of $2,358). The average cost savings from a fall furnace tune-up is about 20 percent of that, or $287.

By scheduling a $160 tune-up now, you save a cool $287 later. That is an automatic $127 back in your pocket!

Save an Average of $300 on Furnace Repairs

The average cost of a furnace repair service is around $288 in North America today, with a typical low of $65 and a typical high of $912.

One of the main goals of scheduling preventive furnace maintenance is to catch emerging problems when they are small and before they cause a major malfunction or outage.

Here again, by investing $160 now in a preventive inspection and tune-up, you stand to save several hundred dollars or more on a major repair incident later this winter, particularly if your furnace system is in mid-life or older.

While we realize this may not apply for a brand-new furnace system that is still under warranty, here, you want to schedule preventive maintenance to avoid voiding your warranty guarantees.

Most importantly, by taking a preventive approach to furnace maintenance, you sidestep the risk of joining the 15 percent of homeowners annually who are involved in home fires, sometimes with truly disastrous consequences.

Save $600 with a New Furnace Upgrade

No matter how meticulous you are about scheduling preventive maintenance for your furnace, inevitably the day will come when your furnace is ready to retire.

When it calls it quits, decision day arrives whether you were ready for it or not.

Rather than worrying and waiting out yet another Canadian winter hoping your furnace will come through for you one more time, sometimes it is smart to take the offensive and just make the switch.

We know this represents a significant investment and is not a decision to make lightly. But here is some news that can make the cost easier to bear – you will reap an automatic savings of up to 30 percent on energy costs.

Using our benchmark numbers from earlier here, that is around $430 in savings over the next few months.

Plus, since you are upgrading to a new furnace, you can skip the annual preventive maintenance cost and put that $160 back in your pocket.

Here, you have already saved yourself around $600 and you haven’t even touched your fancy new programmable furnace thermostat.

Save $140 By Programming Your Furnace Thermostat

A programmable furnace thermostat is a terrible thing to waste. Without the help of this handy watchdog, you risk heating and cooling your empty home all year long.

The cost of this makes leaving a light on in an empty room look like pocket change.

Just by programming your thermostat to lower the temperature one degree, you can save up to 10 percent on your annual energy bills on top of what you have already saved through the other methods described here.

Once again taking some help from our earlier benchmark numbers, this looks like yet another $140 back in your pocket – just by punching a few numbers on a keypad!

Save $280 By Insulating and Sealing Your Ducts

Finally, what is a furnace without an efficient network of ducts to route all that warm air? It is just a big warm-air floor fan, essentially.

You trust your ducts to do the heavy lifting of getting the warmed air to each room in your home (and keeping your ears free from complaints by shivering family members).

But how well are your ducts actually able to do their job? Unless you are living in a new-construction home, it is likely your existing ductwork already has a few leaks or tears. Over time, age-related wear and tear can add up to air leakage of up to 20 percent!

That is 20 percent of the warmed air you are paying for that never makes it to its final destination – a good $280 wasted.

The other part of keeping your warm air affordable and effective is insulation. This may include weather stripping, caulking and sealing around electrical outlets, windows and doors, wrapping your ducts and heating pipes, adding extra insulation to your walls, ceiling and flooring, and other fixes.

But once completed, you get to reap 100 percent of the benefits of the most expensive utility in your home – your furnace.

Get in Touch

Is it time to give your furnace a fire safety inspection and tune-up before winter arrives? We can help!

Contact us online or give us a call at 877-885-3403.

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