As the temperature is rising, you’re probably noticing a proportional increase in your electricity bill, as well. It’s not pleasant to be hot all the time, so what are some good ways to stay cool while keeping your electricity bill manageable? In today’s blog post, we will explore several tips to save on your electricity bill this summer. If you have some more ideas, please feel free to comment at the end and contribute! We would love to hear what you think!
- Shield out the sunlight in your home. Use heavy curtains to cover up windows to prevent too much heat from coming in. This will help your home stay cool.
- Make sure your home is insulated. This might sound like a tip for winter, but it’s actually helpful in the summer, as well. If your home is insulated, then a little bit of coolness will help it to stay cool and prevent the heat from the outdoors from seeping in.
- Shut the doors on the second floor. Heat rises, so try to keep the doors closed upstairs to prevent the air conditioning from having to work harder to keep the entire house cool.
- Use fans. Don’t be afraid to use fans. Fans use less energy than A/C units, but work well to keep certain rooms cooled.
- Make sure fans are spinning the right direction. Have you ever noticed that your ceiling fan has a little switch on it? That switch determines which way it spins, which may seem insignificant, but one direction is used to keep a room warm, while the other is used to cool it down (depending which way the air is blowing). This is very important in the summer. If your fan is blowing air down, then it will cool you off. You can tell if a fan is blowing down by standing underneath it. Most fans spin counter-clockwise when they’re blowing down. If you stand underneath and you can feel the air hitting you, then it’s blowing down. If it’s not, try changing the switch.
- Clean your filters.This will help your A/C unit to run most efficiently.
- Find leaks/holes in windows. Is hot air seeping in anywhere in your home? Look around windows and doors to see if you can feel any hot air coming in, and then seal it up!
- Paint your house! This tip is a bit extreme to do simply for cooling’s sake, but if you are considering painting your house, you might want to consider painting it a lighter color to reflect the heat, instead of absorbing it. Surprisingly, this doesn’t cancel out the benefits of keeping your house warm in the winter, as you will end up saving more by keeping the heat OUT of your house in summer than by keeping it IN your house in the winter.
- Use plants! By planting trees in strategic locations to provide shading, you can save a great deal of energy. Consult a landscape architect to find the best placement for plants and trees to give shade to your home.
- Keep the lights off during the day. Lights themselves use a great deal of electricity, plus they generate heat. This might sound contradictory to the statement about keeping curtains over the windows, and in a way it sort of is. Open up the curtains in rooms that you are in, but make sure to keep the curtains closed in rooms that you are not in. By doing this, your air conditioning will not have to work to cool ALL of the rooms in your house.
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Sources:
39 Super Tips for Saving Money on Cooling and Air Conditioning Costs
5 Easy Fixes fora High Summer Electric Bill
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