TYLER — C. Woods Company in Tyler are experts in heat and air -- they've been in business since the 50s.

As the night air gets colder this month and East Texans curl up by the fire and crank up the heat, operations manager Jim Goodson says in order to get the most out of your gas or electric heating -- you need to make sure it's working properly.

"The main problem you're gonna have is your leaky ductwork.  If the ductwork is not insulated in the attic.  If it's broken things like that, you'll lose a lot of efficiency," Goodson said.

Goodson says it's important to change the filters and make sure your attic is insulated enough.

With gas systems, technicians need to make sure the flu pipe is working properly -- and with electric heat, they need to make sure all of the heat strips are actually coming on.

"The gas -- if you have a dirty filter, a dirty coil inside, you can't produce enough air flow across it.  The heat cycles on and off and it costs you a lot extra," Goodson said.

Also, much like air conditioning, it's important to keep the heat at an average temperature like 70 to 72 degrees.

And just turn it down not off during the day.

Believe it or not, your ceiling fan can actually work with your heater to keep your house warm during the wintertime.  You just have to find the little switch to reverse the direction of your blades.

"During the summer months, you'll want that air blowing down, during the winter months, you'll want that air coming back up.  That heat is coming off the ceiling and coming back down.  So reversing your ceiling fans really helps out as well," Goodson said.