How to Maximize Heat Retention

When the cold season settles in, the last thing you want is for your warm air to escape your home. Your heating unit works hard to achieve a comfortable temperature, and losing that heat is frustrating.

Maximizing heat retention in the home is about more than just setting your thermostat higher. It’s also about making sure the heat your system produces stays within your home. You’re not heating the outside, as you were probably told as a child. You’re heating your living space.

At Revival Heating & Cooling, we understand how to keep a home warm throughout the fall and winter seasons. We’re not just here to repair your furnace or install a new heat pump. Our team is committed to helping you create a cozy environment that keeps the warmth in.

By focusing on a few key areas of your home, you can dramatically improve heat retention, reduce energy waste, and lower those expensive monthly utility bills.

Let’s explore the most effective ways to maximize your home’s heat retention.

The Home as a Thermal Envelope

Think of your home as a giant envelope that was designed to seal and protect its contents. When this envelope is compromised by leaks or poor insulation, the warm air rushes out, and cold air seeps in. This process is called heat loss, and it’s the number one enemy of energy efficiency. 

Our goal in maximizing heat retention is to improve the integrity of this thermal envelope. This means addressing the biggest reasons for heat loss. 

Four Critical Areas to Improve Heat Retention

Achieving ideal heat retention often comes down to four strategic areas that commonly allow heat to escape. Focusing on these zones can offer the greatest return on your effort and investment.

1. Seal and Insulate Your Attic

Heat rises, and if your attic is poorly insulated, all the warm air created is escaping through the roof. This is perhaps the most important place to maximize heat retention. A properly sealed and insulated attic acts as a thermal blanket, keeping your air inside and the frigid winter air out.

Before adding more insulation, we first seal any gaps or holes where air can travel from the living space into the attic. Common culprits include:

• Gaps around plumbing vents and electrical wiring
• The area around a chimney or furnace flue
• The gap between drywall and framing at the top of interior walls
• Unsealed attic hatches

The amount of insulation is measured by its R-value, which indicates its resistance to heat flow. For most parts of the country, modern building codes recommend a high R-value for attics. We can determine if your current insulation meets the recommended standard.

2. Upgrade or Seal Windows and Doors

Doors and windows are major points of heat loss. In fact, heat loss through windows and doors can account for a large percentage of a home’s total energy usage.

For existing windows and doors, you can dramatically improve heat retention by addressing simple drafts. We recommend having our team inspect and install weatherstripping and caulking around all frames. This simple, cost-effective service can stop a surprising amount of warm air from leaking out.

3. Identify and Eliminate Air Leaks

It’s not just the big openings that cause problems. Small cracks and gaps all over your home can add up to a big amount of heat loss. These leaks are often the hardest to spot but can be responsible for up to 30% of your home’s heating needs.

To find and fix these leaks, Revival Heating & Cooling often performs a blower door test. This professional diagnostic tool depressurizes the house, which exaggerates the air leaks and allows us to pinpoint where they are. Once we find them, we use professional sealing techniques to lock the warmth inside your home.

4. Insulate Ducts, Floors, and Walls

Once you’ve addressed the attic and major leaks, the next step in maximizing heat retention is looking at the other large surfaces, like your walls, floors, and ductwork.

Ductwork running through crawl spaces and basements must be properly sealed and insulated. Meanwhile, if your walls lack proper insulation, heat can easily pass right through them. For homes with crawl spaces or basements, insulating the floor directly above that space can significantly reduce escaping heat.

Maintenance and Home Heating

While sealing and insulating your home is critical, the heating system itself has to be efficient. You can have a completely leak-proof home, but if your heater isn’t working properly, it doesn’t matter. This is why we recommend a professional annual heating tune-up. During this service, our expert technicians perform a full inspection and cleaning, which includes:

• Calibrating the system’s components 
• Checking for potential problems
• Verifying that your unit’s safety mechanisms are working correctly

Revival Heating & Cooling offers services that help you maximize heat retention by producing efficient warmth. You can take advantage of our professional services to have multiple things accomplished at once. We can test your home to find out how it’s losing heat, and ultimately plug things up. Then we can ensure that your heating system is running as efficiently as possible. 

Switch things around to the summer, and you’re essentially looking at the same issues. All of those places in your home where the heat escapes, the cool air will also escape. This creates many of the same problems. Your air conditioning works harder, experiences wear and tear, your bills go up, etc. The good part about our services is that shoring up your thermal envelope works for every season. This is something we only have to do once, and you get the benefits in the summer as well.

The Benefits of Retaining Heat

When you take steps to maximize heat retention, the benefits are immediate and long-lasting, including:

• Lower Energy Bills: The most immediate and satisfying reward is a noticeable drop in your monthly heating costs, as your system runs less often. 
• Improved Comfort: Eliminating drafts and cold spots means consistent, even temperatures across every room in your house.
• Reduced Wear and Tear: Your furnace or heat pump doesn’t have to cycle on and off constantly to fight escaping heat.
• Eco-Friendly: Consuming less energy is a great way to reduce your household’s environmental impact.

These improvements translate to a home that is quieter, more comfortable, and significantly more affordable to heat.

Why Choose Revival Heating & Cooling

If you’re tired of high energy bills and frustrating cold spots, let us handle it. Revival Heating & Cooling is committed to providing great solutions to keep you comfortable. We specialize not only in air sealing and insulation services to maximize heat retention, but also in a range of heating services.

Whether you need a new furnace installation, heat pump repair, or a professional tune-up, our knowledgeable and friendly team is ready to go. We take a holistic approach, ensuring that your HVAC system works with your home’s structure for maximum efficiency and comfort.

Contact Revival Heating & Cooling today to learn more about improving your home’s heat retention and energy efficiency.