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Clik here to view.10 Tips to Beat the Heat

…while staying cool this summer and reducing your electric bill to boot.

Here are 10 tips that, if followed, can dramatically affect your comfort and your pocketbook for the better.

These techniques will help lower your energy bill. They will also help extend the life of your air conditioning unit and keep you cool even in the hottest of summers.

1)  Keep your A/C fan running, and raise the thermostat target temperature. The breeze will provide a cooling effect and the higher temp setting will keep the compressor from coming on as much. Also consider putting box fans in rooms that you use the most. The extra air flow will keep you cooler.

2) Keep that furnace filer clean. Change it monthly in the hot summer months when the A/C is running often and when you are probably having the fan run continuously. Blocked air flow can shorten the life of the air conditioning system and make it run more than it needs to, which will run your electricity bill sky high!

3) Block the heating rays of the sun. Use reflective foil or tinting on windows that face east and west. Some pull-down shades can block most of the sunlight too. Since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, this simple technique will lower the load on your air conditioner and keep it cooler in your house at the same time. Alternately, you can use heavy drapes on those windows. When the sun is in the east, keep those drapes closed. And, of course, close the west drapes when the sun is in the west.

4) Postpone energy producing tasks until the cooler part of the day.

• Eat out, or use microwavable foods as opposed to cooking a full meal. This will keep it much cooler in the house and your air conditioner unit will thank you. Image may be NSFW.
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• Use your bathroom fan to vent the humid air out of the house during and after a shower or bath. Warm humid air makes your A/C unit work harder than warm dry air.

•  If your clothes dryer is in the garage you can just ignore this tip. Try to dry your washed clothing outside – if your neighborhood association allows it – or use an indoor clothes rack designed specifically for this purpose. You can find these at Walmart, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. These clothes racks are usually stood in the bath tub so that clothing can drip into the tub. You can keep the doors closed to the bathroom and the addition of a box fan speeds drying. Remember that this will also cause the air to be humid in the room. If you really want to conserve, block the A/C vent to the bathroom and open the window so that the humidity will blow outside.

• Invest in a laptop instead of the conventional desktop. If you have desktop computers, be sure to keep them turned off when not in use. You would be surprised how much electricity they use and how much heat they give off.

• Turn off the lights inside the house when it is not necessary for them to be on. It doesn’t take many 100 watt light bulbs burning to really heat things up. Your AC system has to compensate for the extra heat, which costs you money and causes more unnecessary wear on your system. It is also a good idea to gradually replace your indoor lighting with the new energy efficient cool-running fluorescent bulbs. They cost a little more but they last a lot longer. As your old bulbs burn out, replace them with the newer type.

• We don’t do much ironing these days, but if you still use this energy inefficient device, do it after hours when the house is cooler and not during the hot part of the day.

5) Blow the heat out of you attic. If you don’t have an attic fan or turbines, get them ASAP. It is not necessary to have both. This can drastically affect your light bill and keep it so much cooler in your home. Along the same lines, the amount of insulation you have in your attic is very important too! That insulation is the only thing that is keeping that hellish attic heat away from your rooms.

6)  Reflect the sun back away from your home. If you have to replace your roof due to hail damage or just normal wear and tear, consider picking a light color tile or shingle. Reflecting the suns rays back instead of absorbing it into the structure of the house is always a good idea.

7)  Coddle you compressor. You don’t always get to choose where the contractor places the outdoor unit of your air conditioner. But, you can take steps, after the fact, to improve your situation. Keep the outdoor unit clean. That is, be sure to clean off the filter if present and the fins on the evaporator. Keep cut grass from collecting on the unit. Don’t allow shrubs and bushes to grow around the outdoor unit either. These restrict air flow and could cause your unit to work too hard and thus shorten it’s lifespan. If you can shade the unit without restricting the air flow that would be ideal.

8)  Program yourself cool. If you haven’t got one already, have a programmable thermostat installed. Read the instructions and program it to fit your lifestyle. These modern marvels can really save you money if programmed properly. It can save you anywhere from $100.00 to $300.00 annually, depending on the square footage of your home and how much time you spend at home.

9)  Have an energy audit done. It is good to do this before you spend a lot of money on repairs on the house and the heating and cooling system. Do the repairs even if you don’t have an energy audit done. It is best to plug all visible air leaks, add insulation, change to energy star appliances, etc. to reduce monthly bills, make your heating and cooling plant last longer, and keep your family more comfortable. But, to maximize the effect, get an audit done before you start work. It will pinpoint just exactly where your attention should be directed. It can save you money in the long run, not just in energy savings, but, it will prevent you from throwing wads of cash at a problem that doesn’t exist. It is your blueprint to a precise solution of you problem.

10) Have your Air Conditioning and Heating system check annually to keep it in top shape. This will extend the life of the system, keep your heating and cooling bills lower, and help prevent catastrophic surprizes that have a bad habit of popping up when we least need to be bothered by them.

Just making a small handful of changes like these can lower your light bill, reduce the load on your Air Conditioning unit, and help you stay cooler at the same time.