If you’re a typical Chicago area homeowner, you spend about $2,000 each year on energy bills—and more than half of that amount goes to heating and cooling your home. It makes sense to look carefully at your home's heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to see whether there are changes you could make to reduce your energy bill and improve your comfort.

Automatic Energy Savings

One of the easiest ways to increase the efficiency of your furnace and air conditioner is to use a programmable thermostat. You can save around 10% a year on your heating and cooling bills by simply turning your thermostat back around 10°–15° for eight hours a day. A programmable thermostat makes it easy to set this up automatically, so that your home heating or cooling system uses less energy while you are sleeping or not at home. You could save nearly $200 annually with an optimally programmed thermostat.

But doesn't reheating my house use more energy?

A common misconception is the belief that turning your thermostat down at night in the winter will end up using more energy because you'll have to heat the house back up in the morning.
Not true! The reality is you are "losing" less heat to the environment when you don't keep your home as warm and thus have to spend less money heating your home...especially when you are sleeping, you won't even notice the difference!

Other Advantages to Programmable Thermostats

• Can automatically monitor and adjust your humidity levels
• Can tell you the temperature outside
• Can be larger and backlit for ease of reading
• Can automatically cycle the air in the home to create even temperatures throughout.