If you’re a regular vaper, you know how much money you can save by ditching the cigs. Thankfully vaping equipment isn’t as heavily taxed by the government. Besides the initial investment in the electronic cigarette device, you’ll have practically no costs. A single tank of e-juice is equivalent to an entire pack of cigarettes, but the e-juice costs pennies. If you’re a chain-smoker, you can save thousands of dollars every year by switching to vaping.

However, you may not realize that you can save lots of cash by making your own coils too.

Atomizers can be expensive. While it might take a bit of research and practice to learn how to build your own coils, you’ll only have to pay for the wire, and the wire you pick up at your local hardware store might even last you a year or longer.

Whether you make your own coils or not though, if you follow these three simple tips, you can make your coils last longer than ever before.

Prime Your Coils

When you purchase a new coil, you cannot simply swap out the old one and start vaping away. Priming your coils is the easiest way to ensure your coils last longer. Though it only takes a few minutes, you can avoid burning your coils dry by simply preparing them first.

You’re always supposed to load up the vape liquid via the slots on the side of the tank. If you drop vape juice down into the chimney, it will drown the coil and probably leak. However, once you’ve filled up your tank, you’re going to want to saturate the wicking material inside the coil before taking a hit.

If you’re vape mod has juice wells, you can open these up to help saturate the wicking material. Otherwise, you can place a few drops of e-liquid on the head to wet it a bit. Then you’ll want to take a few hits without holding down the fire button to give the juice the chance to spread through the cotton. When you’re ready to vape, take a few hits on a lower wattage and then gradually work your way up to your normal settings.

Vape Safely

You’ll want to avoid letting your coils go dry. If you allow your coils to go dry, they might burn out, which will significantly shorten your their lifespan. However, these good vaping habits can help make your coils last longer.

First of all, you’ll want to let your e-cig rest in between hits. If you take puffs at frequent intervals, the coils might not have enough time to absorb more e-liquid, and you might take a dry hit. You’ll also want to make sure not to empty your tank completely. An empty vape tank is like an empty gas tank. It’s a recipe for a dry hit.

Also, unless you’re specifically cloudchasing, you’ll want to do your best to keep your vape mod at a lower wattage. The higher the wattage, the higher the temperature, and you can easily kill your coils at very high settings. Most people find that 50-60W is more than sufficient, so if you’re just in it for the vaping, try to keep it low-key.

Clean Up Your Coils

Who knew that cleaning up after yourself was so important, right?

As it turns out, regularly cleaning your e-cigarette coils can help your coils last longer and even improve the taste of the vapor. First you’ll want to blow out any juice that might still remain in the system. Then you’ll want to take the coil out and run it under very hot water to dislodge any debris that might have stuck to it. When it’s completely clean, sit the coil out to dry overnight.

Attach the coil to the vaporizer and hit the fire button. Make sure that the coil is heating evenly. Then let the coil cool and repeat the process to help the wire to expand. If after a few times the coil still seems to be heating evenly, you can reassemble the device and start vaping again.