How To Reduce Your Summer Energy Bill
Air conditioners, refrigerators and pool filtration systems are all large consumers of energy. Therefore, hot summer weather is notorious for sending an energy bill soaring. This is not only detrimental to the hip pocket, but to the environment. To conserve energy at home during the summer, you need to be mindful of several things. This article explores some of the key summer energy conservation tips to help get you started.
Make your home more energy efficient
The amount of energy required to cool your home is largely dependent on how you have your home set up. Adequate insulation can result in a home that is naturally ten degrees cooler in summer. Your window treatments also have a famous impact on the temperature indoors. Heavily backed curtains, or fitted shutters can help prevent sunlight from heating a room up. Having your windows tinted will also reduce the amount of heat that penetrates into your home. Alternatively plant some trees that will provide external shading. Finally, make positive you eliminate any drafty holes that will leak air. They can take the form of cracks in the wall, holes in the roof, or doors that aren’t aligned correctly. Often when people fix these small faults they can save nearly a third in their heating or cooling costs.
Use your air conditioner wisely
You can make significant energy savings by setting your air conditioner to a temperature that is only a few degrees less then the exact temperature. So always set your thermostat to at least 78 degrees Fahrenheit, you don’t need to compose igloo weather, just take the edge off the heat. If your air conditioner has an adjustable opening, angle it upwards to ensure cold air falls downwards. Once you have selected a temperature, avoid altering this repetitively as this can be wasteful on energy. Try to cool only the room or two that you are utilizing rather then the whole house and in these rooms use draft stoppers to prevent any cold air from escaping. If your rooms also beget ceiling fans, these can be used to benefit circulate the frosty air from your air conditioner. This will benefit your air conditioner reach it’s cut off point more quickly.
Be smart about refrigeration
Refrigerators are another large consumer of energy, particularly if you still own an older, less energy efficient model. You should aim to keep your refrigerator as full as possible as this keeps it insulated and therefore uses less power. If you don’t have food to fill it up, try using ice, bottles of water, or simply scrunched up newspaper to believe the gaps. Make sure you only open the door when you know what you want to retrieve and try to get everything out in one hit. In addition, try to situation your refrigerator as far away from the window, or your oven as possible.
Monitor pool filtration
If you have a swimming pool, you will usually find that you need to run your pool filtration system double time during summer. To assist minimize the total amount of filtration hours required make sure you work hard at manually keeping your pool clean.
Always remember to switch off any unused appliances and in the long term consider changing over to a renewable energy source like solar or wind power. When it comes to cooling, you could also consider installing a Geo Exchange cooling system. They utilize the constant temperature under ground to keep your home distinguished cooler.
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Filed under Whole House Water Filter Cartridges by on Mar 20th, 2011. 