Tricks Proven to Lower Your Commercial Heating Costs

Every winter, commercial owners earn a reminder to lower the amount of energy spent to keep warm. That reminder comes in the form of a utility bill. While many other commercial owners ignore the situation and just accept it, you’re not one of them. One of your top priorities as a building owner should be to save money and energy. What better way is there, than to keep up with your commercial heating costs? Staying warm takes up a lot of resources, taking up as much as 40% of your overall electricity usage every month. Now, consider this. According to the US Department of Energy, commercial buildings are roughly wasting 30% of all power powering it. That’s a lot of energy marked for savings, but that can only happen if you’re ready to do your part.

Below, we list 4 important commercial heating tips we ensure will reduce the cost of running your commercial heating during the winter season.

1. Using a Programmable Thermostat

2. Properly Seal all Ducts

3. Consider Potential Upgrades to Your System

4. Scheduling Regular HVAC Maintenance

Using a Programmable Thermostat

Smart thermostats are leading the charge to change the HVAC industry. A smart thermostat records and analyzes your usage of your commercial heating, which you can use to build a schedule to let the building cool down when it isn’t in use. You’ll notice this simple switch will cut down your monthly utility bill by its lonesome.

HVAC technology such as smart thermostats are really proving their worth. By integrating with your commercial heating system, it monitors the state of your rooftop units, heat pumps, zone dampers, fan coils and more. It’ll know and notify you immediately via text or email if there’s a problem with your HVAC system, where you then call in a technician. From there, the technician will use the extensive information the thermostat has collected to resolve the problem through commercial heating maintenance.

Properly Seal all Ducts

It’s important to look at the ductwork that circulates warm air around the building during the winter months. Any leaks or cracks between the ductwork can cause the heating system to run harder than it needs to, using more energy and creating more costs. It’s easy to check the ducts for leakage and seal with mastic, foil-tape or blown-in sealant.

Every building to some degree has insulation due to building codes, but most ducts have none around them because of tight budgets during the building’s development. Properly insulating the ducts can improve the overall efficiency of your commercial heating by 20%. Check to see the level of your ductwork’s insulation. If it’s low, have a certified HVAC technician come out to your building and perform commercial heating maintenance.

We’d like to point out to you one final thing about your ductwork. In most cases, the architects who designed the ductwork system moving air through the building did not take into consideration the use of custom ductwork. Custom ductwork eliminates all the twists and turns present in standard ductwork, and welds together without any room for leakage. It reduces the travel time and energy used to circulate heated air. Custom ductwork takes the pressure off your commercial HVAC system, enabling the system itself to last longer down the road.

Consider Potential Upgrades to Your HVAC System

Not all buildings are the same. Building codes change quite often, so it isn’t a surprise to see older buildings lacking some of the newer necessities powering modern commercial buildings. Of course, if you’re an owner of a much older commercial building, your heating system may spur out at any moment. That’s not good for business, and certainly not something to keep on your mind for long.

With today’s technology, you’ll see a significant difference in energy usage just by making upgrades to your commercial HVAC. You may note a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by replacing a decade old heating unit with an Energy Star™ product, and up to 100% for units installed back in the 1970s. This also goes for outdated furnaces and boilers that could also benefit from an upgrade. Schedule regular commercial heating maintenance to keep it actively maintained and well cared for.

Scheduling Regular HVAC Maintenance

Throughout this article we’ve talked about scheduling commercial heating maintenance to keep up with your system and make sure that it’s running to save energy and money. Maintenance can catch any defects or problems causing an inefficiency in the system, and resolve it before it starts digging into your bank account. Having performed regular commercial heating maintenance can eliminate the excess 40% of wasted energy per month, and almost cut your monthly utility bill in half. That’s a holiday present you’re sure to be happy about.