Did you know the little bit of air you feel through the crack in your door or window is responsible for one third of the heat loss or air conditioning loss in your home? This is according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Keep the heat or air conditioning in your home, as well as reduce your money being spent on energy by installing window weather-stripping and door weather-stripping.

Installing window weather-stripping or door weather-stripping is simple and can be done in a matter of minutes. Listed below are the tools, materials and steps to install weather-stripping and save on heating cost.

There are so many electronic gadgets these days that people do not pay much attention to how these electronic gadgets actually save energy and money. Do not overlook the advantages automatic and programmable thermostats have compared to manual thermostats.

With the current energy prices people are taking a look at alternatives such as pellet stoves. We examine in this article pellet stove prices and help you decide is this a worthwhile investment? Pellet stoves (see Tips to Purchasing Pellet Stoves)Pellet are alternatives to wood stoves, which have been around for a very long time. Wood burning stoves have not been popular throughout most of their existence mostly because of the high level of expense that has been attached to them. As energy prices across the board begin to rise however (including the cost of natural resources such as wood), more and more people are starting to take a closer look at this pellet stoves as a cost efficient alternative to wood stoves, natural gas, or electric heat.

Apellet stove is an electronically powered home appliance used to emit heat in houses. It is made of various components that are used to hold the pellets, feed them, burn the pellets and distribute heat. Although pellet stoves and other heat stoves are a little bit complex to maintain, their operations are remarkably simple.

One of the most important things you will need to understand about pellet stoves is how to fill the stove with pellets for maximum efficiency. The part of the stove where the pellets are stored is called the hopper. This part of the pellet stove comes in different sizes and the holding capacity is based on pounds/kilograms. The smallest pellet stove hopper could carry up to 35 lbs (15.9kg) of pellets while the largest hoppers are known to handle as much as 130 lbs (60kg) of pellets.

The pellets in hoppers are not burned all at once. The pellets are slowly fed into the fire pot depending on your settings. The number of pellets to be burned could be controlled by a component of the pellet stove called an auger.

Using pellet stoves are a compelling alternative to conventional heat systems. Here are a couple of reasons why you should be burning pellets for your home heating needs.

General Uses

The pellets used for pellet stoves are made of recycled materials combined with biomass. These pellets could be 1-inch long or 3/8th of an inch short. In any size, they can be used in different types of pellet burners and you would get the same efficiency. Pellet burners can also effectively emit heat using different materials. For example, nutshell and corn kernels are sometimes used in place of pellets.

Pellet stoves are gaining popularity because they offer the same heat output at a lower cost than natural gas or oil powered heaters. With such high energy efficiency, some home owners have opted to convert their primary heating system at home to wood pellet stoves. Others use this as an alternative or secondary source of heat as self standing stoves or inserts into their fireplaces. It is estimated that the average monthly heating bill will increase up to 30% every winter if a conventional heating system is used. This spiraling increase in heating bill costs can be dramatically lowered by using a pellet stove.

Fireplaces are not as common in houses as they were a mere decade ago, but the fact of the matter is that if you have a fireplace in your home, you need to make sure it is kept clean. There are several reasons why this is so, but the most important one is an issue of the immediate safety of you and your family. Fireplaces, when burned over long periods of time, tend to create embers that build up directly as the length of time since the last cleaning gets longer. A lot of these embers are still ignitable under the right conditions because they tend to be very dry and very combustible, meaning that you could start a fire in your own house if you do not clean them out on a regular basis. The difference is that an ember fire would be uncontrolled and could cause severe damage and even death if evacuation is not quick. You can prevent all that from even becoming an issue by making sure you clean your fireplace regularly.

1.Get a thermostat that is programmable

One of the worst things that can happen to you is leaving the thermostat on when you go to work. This will heat your house when nobody is in it and that of course is practically the definition of wasting money. Getting a programmable thermostat will allow you to program exactly when the thermostat is on and when it is off and this will allow you to set the calibration and then forget about it, dealing with other parts of your life that are more pressing and more important. The thermostat will automatically turn off when you leave instead of forcing you to turn it off manually and since most thermostats are digital nowadays (especially the programmable ones), you can easily see what is going on with a quick peek at the thermostat monitor.