The Impact of Overheating Your Home

The Impact of Overheating Your Home

If you live in an extremely cold region of the country, heating your home is a necessity. However, overheating your home can cause problems for your health, create a financial burden and even impact the environment.

Health Problems

The indoor environment directly impacts the health of everyone living in the home. In particular, children can be very sensitive to extremes in temperature and humidity. Many furnaces unevenly distribute the heat throughout the home; this uneven heat distribution can cause one area of the home to become extremely hot while the rest of the house remains cold. If this is the case in your home, you should contact an HVAC professional to see if the uneven heating can be resolved.

Overheating a house removes moisture from the air, creating a very dry indoor environment. Unfortunately, breathing very dry air can lead to respiratory problems, such as dry sinuses, nosebleeds, and dehydration. Likewise, the dry air will draw the moisture from the skin and eyes, causing dryness and itchiness. Finally, dry air can also cause static electricity, resulting in annoying mild shocks and fly-away static hair.

Financial Burden

Running the furnace on high 24/7 will result in an outrageous gas or electric bill. Likewise, running your furnace all day can cause a lot of wear and tear, necessitating service from an HVAC professional. HVAC repair can be costly and may put you over your monthly budget.

The best way to save money is to set the thermostat on a relatively low temperature. Keeping your thermostat at 68 degrees Fahrenheit while you’re home the daytime is generally recommended. Furthermore, your thermostat should be turned down in the winter if you’re away during the day. In fact, Energy.gov recommends turning your thermostat down by 10 to 15 degrees for 8 hours a day, such as while you’re at work or while you’re sleeping. This can save you 5 to 15 percent on your energy bill.

Environmental Impact

Your furnace not only contributes to both indoor and outdoor air pollution, but it also is a source of noise pollution. If you suspect your furnace is emitting any sort of fumes, or if it is very noisy, contact an HVAC professional for inspection. Fumes can be a very dangerous situation inside of your home.

Overheating your home not only contributes to a potentially polluted environment within and around your home, but it also uses more energy resources than necessary; this depletes our natural resources unnecessarily. If you believe your furnace needs professional HVAC service to run more efficiently, contact an HVAC expert at Command Service Center.