I live in an apartment where our heat is one of those in wall units similar to what a hotel would have. What can I do to tune that up?

@leprechaunshawn: I'd guess clean/replace any filters in it, and maybe blow the dust out of it with some compressed air (and have a vacuum handy to clean it up).

1. Move far, far away from the Northeast U.S. - check

Patch any cracks in your crawl space walls. I mix hydraulic cement to a brownie batter consistency and press it into any of the larger cracks in may crawl space walls. It really cuts down on air infiltration into the crawl space, which will help keep your floors warm. Don't forget to close your foundation vents, and maybe even stuff some insulation behind them. These two simple fixes completely solved all my pipe freezing problems.

For apartment dwellers: Take an incense stick around all the outside doors, windows, baseboard and outlets. Anywhere the smoke moves you've got a draft. Hit it with cheap $1/tube acrylic caulk. That shrink wrap plastic you put on your windows can save hundreds of dollars off your heating bill. The trick is to put on the double sided tape, then wait a few days before putting on the plastic, and then a few more before using a hair dryer to shrink it. Done over a week or two and you'll get a much tighter fit that will be barely visible on the window.

9. Move to a warmer climate and save money on heating bills.

@halcyondays: *10. (darn)

I just do the plastic on the windows. But I can't do it until at least November, because it's still too warm. The temperature seesaws so much here in fall that it's not even funny. I can't do the kitchen window either, because come January, we'll probably have a couple of 70-degree days followed by tornadoes, if the last two years are any indication. :P

@HogwartsAlum: Meaning I'll have to open the window to get some air.

(a) close the window latches on each window
(b) turn ceiling fans to reverse rotation
(c) block air returns that are near the ceiling
(d) insulate cellar air ducts, hot water pipes and water heater

@halcyondays: O HAI, my $300 cooling bill says otherwise.

@The Cheat: Exactly, what you save on heating you lose on cooling. Same bill just paid atn a different time of year. Oh and if anyone tells you a dry heat is a good thing laugh at them.

Check and replace caulk along windows in any home over 5 years old. I finally did this last year in my 11 year old end-unit townhome. Air, nay, WIND was coming in from multiple windows with enough velocity to move tissues and papers. We're talking noticable. It'd dry your hands if you put them there. I got some white caulk, pulled the old dried up caulk away from the window, replaced it with new caulk and the room warmed noticably. Of course, since I am so unhandy it looks like a child did it, but I can deal with that later :)

I've got a problem with my front door. The top edge of the door touches the frame, and the bottom edge of the door touches, but the middle is bowed in slightly. You can see light coming in for about 6 feet of the door. I tried to install one of those vinyl strips for the length of the door (on the exterior), but then my door wouldn't close on certain days (temperature). My other doors have tin or copper strips that are folded to protect against air coming in, but I can't find anything similar at lowes or home depot.

@SLAAB: Go on and just rub it in our faces....

Salt to a wound. MMMMM feels great.

Buy a zero degree sleeping bag and turn the heater down loooooooooow.

Oh yea. I'm cheap.

@SLAAB: Hey, Alaska is far, far away from the Northeast U.S., right?

@Saboth: Walmart has rolls of rubber door weather stripping. It glues onto the door frame and is fairly malleable so it should fill in any gaps. You can also cut it to fit so that it's only in the places where there is a gap. There are a few different shapes too, so pick the one that best fits your door.

@donnie5: Heh, I'm investing in Slankets for me and my wife.

@Hoss: Blocking return vents will make your furnace work harder at moving air and reduce it's efficiency.

They sell these caulk templates that work pretty well. The ones I bought had a silicone blade that you held at a 45 degree angle and dragged over the caulk. The edges would pick most of the excess caulk and the rounded tip would leave a very nice bead. I redid my shower and managed to make it look pretty good.

The one thing I have noticed is that I have always put down way too much caulk.

@donnie5:

That was my plan for when I was single...but my wife has an issue with me keeping the house 60 and below...well we also have pets. I told her I might be generous and bump it up to 65 this winter.

This year I am going to make draft dodgers for our doors. The best one I saw had a dachsund painted along its length. I live in an apartment, so nothing permanent.

If your attic floor isn't insulated, there's a start to keeping heat in.

@Verucalise(countingcalories): Note to self: Insulate attic floor.

I bought a programmable thermostat, only to find out that it isn't compatible with our heaters. It said universal on it. Apparently universal doesn't count when it's baseboard heaters. They don't mass produce programmables for baseboards heaters apparently, I found very few, and they were 3-4 times as expensive as thermostats that control furnaces.

"6. Add extensions to downspouts so water runs at least 3 to 4 feet away from the foundation."

We added a "stream" to take the water a good 15 or 20 feet away from the foundation (after having some basement water problems). The gutter (for the whole back of the house, we have a very simple roofline) and the sump outlet both come out in the same place, so we built a little stream lined with an impermeable liner, filled it with river rocks for pretty, and it runs down to a "hollow" that we planted up with prairie swamp plants (that love alternating soakings and parchings).

It draws many compliments and keeps the water well away from our foundations.

For winter, we're getting new blinds, those honeycomb ones that insulate. We need them because our blinds are the older baby-killing kind, and also really ugly. We're getting them in the baby's room (old, ugly, baby-killing, and BROKEN) and for the living room picture window, which is HUGE and drafty and has a cord that's too easy to reach. If we like them and get good insulating, we'll probably replace more blinds ... all of the blinds in our house are that "old vinyl" color and pretty ugly.

I need to get on that "programmable thermostat" thing!

get a furry pet that sleeps with you. It's like free heat!

@HogwartsAlum: I always leave up a few screens -- usually kitchen, dining room, and one in the upstairs master bedroom -- for those unexpectedly hot winter days when you need to ventilate the house.

Also for when I burn something cooking and want to vent the smoke. :D

@downwithmonstercable: I just bought a RiteTemp programable yesterday from Home Depot... They claim that will work with everything. It was a good deal too. 25 dollars for a 5+2 day programable.

Get a girlfriend/boyfriend. Stay at their house a lot. Turn down the heat at your house.

How exactly do I "tune up" my gas furnace? I don't think it has a timing belt...

Insulation insulation insulation.

Our garage is located right below the living room and prior to our moving in it wasn't insulated. The result was that the living room would hover around 55-60 degrees in the winter and make the furnace work longer and harder than it needed to. Our gas bill was horrible every month. After we put in the insulation ourselves to save some cash (and to allow us to afford better insulation) the living room easily stays around the same temperature as every other room in the house. This is not only true in winter, but summer as well.

@The Cheat: I do too...oh caulk.

for real though, as long as you can save/spread the extra caulk you'll do alright.

@lannister80: Call the company you get your oil/gas from and tell them you need your furnace serviced. They will come out, check the filters, adjust the burner, check for leaks, etc. We had it done last year at the house we rent and it almost *halved* our oil consumption.[1]

[1]results probably non-typical because who knows when it was last done.

@Saboth: Dang man, you must be made of money!

@downwithmonstercable: I just installed one, but in my research it seemed like most if not all of them said they didn't work with baseboard heaters on the back of the package somewhere.

@PhilFR: I think my husband wouldn't appreciate that very much.. I'm just guessin.

@The Porkchop Express: i replied to another comment elsewhere but clicked reply in here first, then it stuck it up in this thread... but yeah, rule of thumb - putting down what looks like not enough caulk is almost always too much caulk

@lannister80: We have an HVAC company we pay $89 to for a yearly contract and they come out spring and fall to service the furnace and A/C. Generally they check to be sure it's all in working order, clean all the filters, check for parts that want to break, etc.

(In addition, we get free normal-hours labor -- we always pay for parts -- and after hours we get put to the top of the queue and pay a reduce after-hours rate, for normal sorts of service. It's great!)

@Kimaroo - No Stars Upon Thars: unless he likes the cold, a lot!

@Saboth: I used something like this: [media.mydoitbest.com] I don't know if it's what Necoras is talking about or not--it feels kind of like putty in its give, but it keeps its integrity. It's narrow enough to fit into really small spaces, and I can cheesily double it up if I need more padding in bits. I'm lazy when it comes to cleaning the surface, but it still stayed stuck pretty well, or at least never deviated so far that the door didn't just shut it back into place.

@leprechaunshawn:

I'm not sure that you can do much with that sort of setup.

What you can do is make sure that your curtains are lined and thick enough to hold in heat, check doors leading to the outside for drafts, insulate outlets on outside walls, and have your windows and doors caulked if they need it.

@donnie5: My last apartment had those in the wall style gas heaters from the 30s. You had to walk from room to room with a lighter. We hung blankets in every door so as not to heat the hall connecting the rooms, would pile on the sweaters and comforters, and even tried adding aluminum foil to our slippers to act as a radiant barrier. We stayed chilly, but on the upside our upstairs neighbors often has $700 a month gas bills, while ours stayed under $200. Also, we both lost weight from the extra calorie expenditure.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Oh, thanks for the reminder--I think that's actually included in my new furnace purchase. I should check that and get the appointment set up.

Call your local utility. I live in one of the cheapest regions for electricity in the country, and yet mine offers free (installed) programmable thermostats. It has also negotiated with local HVAC companies for VERY! cheap rates on having your HVAC system inspected and given a yearly tune-up. They also offer energy audits of your home or business where they come out with an infrared camera and look for places leaking warm air or lacking insulation.

@ShortBus: Agreed. I have more than one return in the same 2nd floor space and I close the upper return in the fall Others without floor returns should not do this

some other things you can try

1, If you are not going to be home for much of the day, don't turn the heat completely off, just lower it to something like 65f (it cost more money to heat a house from like 40f to 75f than it does to keep the house at 65f) (if you are going to be gone for multiple days then turn the heat off)

2, sometimes the candle trick next to a window doesn't work all the time. try getting a large sheet of plastic and tape it over the window on a windy day to see if air is leaking, then if needed you can re-caulk the window and then using some tape that doesn't leave behind a annoying residue, tape the the moving parts of the window.

3, if your house uses either radiators or central cooling/heating, close air vents to rooms that you don't use, or don't use much (same goes for the radiators)

4, make sure you have a quality thermostat, some cheaper programmable thermostats are very inaccurate and will only respond to a big change (you will notice this if the thermostat says it is 75f but your freezing your butt off) these waste money because your house will almost never be at the temperature set it will go way over it then way under it.

5, look for any large cracks or areas that need to be sealed and then fill them with expanding foam then top it off with caulking (caulking is not a good insulator so for larger areas use expanding foam (they only cost about $4.50 for a large can)

@lockdog: Freezing as a weight loss plan....I like it.

buy and wear snuggie full time.