Community Corner

5 Tips to Prep Your Home for the Cold and Save Cash

How to check your windows, where to set your thermostat and what to do with your drapes, via ComEd's Patch blog.

As temperatures drop, ComEd offers Patch users a few tips to prepare your home for the cold.

  1. Inspect the caulking and weather-stripping around all windows, doors and openings for utility services and replace as necessary. Making these improvements could result in savings of up to 20 percent on annual heating bills.
  2. When at home in the winter, keep your thermostat at 68 degrees or less. When leaving home for more than four hours in the winter, turn your thermostat down 5 to 10 degrees.
  3. During cold weather, take advantage of the sun’s warmth by keeping drapes open during daylight hours.  
  4. Reverse the rotation of ceiling fan blades, which should spin clockwise at low speed during the winter months, so the warm air that has risen can be re-distributed around the room.
  5. Replace incandescent holiday lights with LEDs. They’re durable, cooler to the touch and use 65 percent less energy than conventional incandescent light strands.
ComEd has taken steps to ensure the electric grid is ready for whatever the season brings. 

"We have prepared for high winds, ice and snow, including conducting inspections and preventive maintenance for thousands of miles of power lines and more than 850 substations," ComEd says in its Patch blog. "Over the last 10 years, ComEd has invested more than $9 billion in the electrical grid in Illinois to improve reliability for customers."

READ MORE on ComEd's Patch blog. 

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