5 Tips to Cut Your Cooling Costs This Summer
The cost of everything is going up these days – including electricity. As heatwave after heatwave pummels the United States and Europe, you might be looking for ways to cut energy costs – without sacrificing comfort.
You don’t need to suffer with the heat to save money. There’s a lot you can do to keep cooling costs down, without tossing and turning in a hot bedroom at night or sweating in front of the TV during the day. Remove sources of heat from inside the house, and hang up curtains to keep the sun from warming your interior. Use your ceiling fans, and if you don’t have any, install some. Keep your A/C condenser in tip-top shape so it can function at peak efficiency, and install a smart thermostat that you can program to cool your home only during the hours when you’re in it.
1) Change Your Light Bulbs
One way to keep your house cooler in the summer is to remove sources of heat from the interior, and you’d be surprised how much heat old-fashioned, incandescent light bulbs give off. if you’re still using incandescent bulbs, it’s long past time to switch them out for LED bulbs. LED bulbs don’t get hot, so they won’t warm up your house even if you have them on all day. As an added bonus, they use less electricity than incandescents, and last longer.
Of course, light bulbs aren’t the only thing that could be heating up the interior of your home. Avoid using the oven to keep your kitchen cool. You may even want to avoid cooking on the range on hot days, or at least wait to cook until night falls and it cools off a little outside.
2) Hang Window Treatments
When the sun beats through your windows, it can heat up the inside of your house a lot. You don’t need to hang blackout curtains on every window to keep the sun from heating up your home’s interior, but window treatments or solar blocking window film, or a combination of the two, can keep the sun’s heat out of your interior. They can also protect your carpets and furniture from sun damage. Keep the curtains closed during the day to keep it cool inside the house.
3) Turn Up the Thermostat and Turn On Some Fans
If you turn up your thermostat one degree for an eight-hour period, you can save up one to three percent on your home cooling costs. If you turn up your thermostat several degrees, the savings compound. But you and your family will be less comfortable, right?
Not if you’re using fans. Ceiling fans are the best option for homeowners who want to cool off without jacking up the A/C bill. Ceiling fans create a cooling breeze that can make your home feel several degrees cooler, and allow you to turn up the thermostat when you’re at home. Install modern ceiling fans in your living space if you don’t already have them. They’re an upgrade you’ll be glad you splurged on.
4) Clean and Tune Your A/C Regularly
Like any piece of equipment, your A/C condenser needs regular maintenance in order to function efficiently. Have your A/C professionally tuned up every spring if you can afford it. At the very least, you should hose off the condenser coils so they aren’t blocked up with debris that can stifle airflow. Change your HVAC air filter regularly – every one to six months, more often if you have pets or family members with respiratory issues, and less often if you don’t.
5) Install a Smart Thermostat
If you turn your thermostat up seven to ten degrees during the hours when your family isn’t home, you can save 10 to 15 percent on your heating and cooling costs over the course of the whole year. In order to do this, though, you need a smart or programmable thermostat. A smart thermostat is the best choice, because you can connect to it from your smartphone, and adjust the temperature in your home remotely if you need to. That means if you’re coming home early one day, you can tell the smart thermostat to go ahead and start cooling the house early so it, the house, will be comfortable when you arrive. Otherwise, you can program your thermostat to keep the house several degrees warmer during the day when everyone is out, and reduce your cooling costs significantly.
It’s costing most families a small fortune to keep their homes cool through a summer of economic inflation and heat waves. When you take steps to save money on cooling costs, you and your family can stay comfortable, without going broke.
