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One of the most important systems ion your home, though most likely unseen is the duct-work. Usually in the crawlspace, basement or attic. Uninsulated and/or leaky ducts can add hundreds of dollars to your heating and cooling bills. There are two parts to a typical duct system, the supply which brings treated air into the living space through the registers and the return which takes inside air and returns it to the air handler to be retreated and redistributed throughout the house.

Ideally there would be a return duct in every room where there is a supply duct , that is usually not the case as that doubles the amount of duct work and is more expensive.  Most of the time there will be one or two larger ducts for the return located centrally in the home,

All ducts, supply and return, should be sealed as air tight as possible and insulated especially if it is in an unconditioned space. I recommend sealing all joints and cracks in in the duct-work with duct mastic and insulating with duct wrap insulation.  In my experience using a good foil tape on joints and covering that with mastic works pretty good. Regular duct tape has a tendency to to dry out and come off. Insulation should also be secured to the ducts with tie wire or plastic ties so that it stays where you put it.

Sealing and insulating duct-work can be a dirty, messy job it usually involves crawling around under the house or in the attic. You might want to have a professional do it, but if your a do -it- your self-er  it’s not complicated. It will just take some time and effort. It could save you money.

You can save as much as 10% on your energy bills by simply turning your thermostat back 10% to15% for eight hours per day. This can be done easily by turning the thermostat back while your sleeping and while the home is unoccupied. This can be done automatically by using a Programmable Thermostat. With one of these devices you can adjust the times you turn on the heating or air conditioning according to a pre-set schedule that you set. For instance in winter it can be set to lower the temperature after bedtime and then raise it up to a more comfortable level before you get up . In summer you can set it to do the opposite.

Programmable Thermostats, sometimes called set-back or smart thermostats, can be set to multi daily settings per day that can be manually overridden without affecting the rest of the daily settings. As a result your equipment will run less when it is not needed and you will save energy, money, and be greener.