How to Keep Your Heating Bill Low This Winter

How to Keep Your Heating Bill Low This Winter in Waseca

There’s a moment every January in south central Minnesota where you open the utility bill and just sit with it for a second. The wind has been coming across the fields off Clear Lake for weeks, the furnace has barely stopped running, and the number reflects all of it.

Here’s the encouraging part. A good share of what drives that number is within your control, and most of it costs very little to nothing at all to address.

Connors Plumbing, Heating and Air has been taking care of families in Waseca, Steele, and LeSueur counties since 1949, which means our team has watched many Minnesota winters do their worst to a lot of heating systems. Below is what actually moves the needle on a heating bill, roughly in order of how much it helps compared to what it costs you.

What Are the Cheapest Ways to Lower a Heating Bill?

Start with the free and nearly free items. These make a real difference and none of them even require a technician.

1. Change the Furnace Filter: A clogged furnace filter restricts airflow, which makes your system run longer to reach the same temperature. Check it monthly during winter and swap it when it looks gray. This is the single highest-value, lowest-effort task on the entire list.
2. Turn Down the Thermostat While Sleeping: Lowering the setting during the hours nobody notices it is where most of the easy savings lie. If you’ve got a programmable or smart thermostat, set the schedule once and let it work.
3. Stop Heating Rooms Nobody Uses: Closing off an unused guest room will certainly help. Just don’t close too many vents at once, since that creates pressure problems for the system. A few is fine.
4. Open the Curtains On Sunny Days: Even in January, direct sun through south-facing windows adds real warmth all for free. Close them at night to slow the heat leaving through the glass.
5. Seal Drafts You Can Feel: Weatherstripping and caulk cost very little. Walk through your house on a windy day with your hand out and you’ll easily find gaps around your doors, window frames, and where pipes enter walls.
6. Reverse Ceiling Fans: Run your ceiling fans clockwise on low and they’ll push the warm air that collected at the ceiling back down into the room where you actually are.
7. Keep Vents & Radiators Clear: Furniture, rugs, and curtains blocking a supply vent or radiator means you’re paying to heat the back of a couch.

Does Furnace Maintenance Really Lower Your Utility Bill?

Furnace maintenance absolutely lowers your utility bill and is the item homeowners most often skip. A heating system that hasn’t been serviced works harder than it needs to for the same result, and you pay that difference every single month.

A tune-up from Connors covers heating maintenance for all makes and models, including forced air gas furnaces, oil furnaces, steam and hot water boilers, and radiant heating systems. Beyond the efficiency gain, maintenance protects your family from dangerous carbon monoxide, prevents surprise breakdowns, and extends the life of the equipment.

A few things worth knowing about how we work:

• When should you schedule maintenance? It’s best to schedule your tune-up before the demanding part of the heating season, not during. Early fall is ideal. A system tuned-up in October will run efficiently for the entire winter rather than for the last few weeks of it.
• What does the visit look like? Our friendly technicians wear shoe covers and put down drop cloths and splash guards. We aim to leave your home cleaner than when we arrived, which is a strange thing for a heating company to be proud of, and we are anyway.
• What if something isn’t right afterward? Our heating contractor services are 100% guaranteed in writing. If you’re not satisfied, we’ll come back and fix the job for free.

Why Do Waseca Homeowners Call Connors Plumbing, Heating & Air?

We’ve been at this since 1949, when Robert Connors first founded the company. His daughter Peggy joined in 1991 and leads it today as President, which is a long time for one family to be answering the same phone in the same town.

• We’re your actual neighbors. We’re locally owned and operated, and we know what this climate in Minnesota does to heating equipment because we live with it too.
• You’ll know the price before we start. We offer upfront pricing on every job, with no service call fees and no dispatch fees.
• Our technicians treat your home well. Clean, courteous, respectful, and trained on all makes and models of heating and plumbing equipment.
• The work is guaranteed in writing. If you’re not satisfied, we come back and make it right at no cost. Financing is available for larger projects.

Start With the Filter, Then Get the Tune-Up Scheduled

Go check your furnace filter today. If it’s gray, replace it, and you’ve already handled the cheapest efficiency improvement available to you.

Then get maintenance on the calendar before the coldest stretch arrives, while scheduling is still easy. A system running at peak condition through a full Minnesota winter will save considerably more than one tuned up in February.

Connors Plumbing, Heating and Air proudly serves Waseca, Waterville, Elysian, Janesville, Kilkenny, New Richland, Owatonna, Pemberton, Waldorf, Morristown, Mankato, North Mankato, Faribault, Madison Lake, St. Clair, St. Peter, and Medford. Call (507) 690-3580 or schedule your furnace tune-up online today.