With another blisteringly hot summer on the horizon, many homeowners have turned their attention to home cooling. After all, if you reside in an area with untenably hot temps, it’s only natural that you’d seek to make your residence as cool as possible. Unfortunately, if you rely solely on A/C, your cool home is likely to come at a high price. Cost-conscious homeowners who want to avoid breaking the bank on home cooling costs this summer can benefit from the following pointers.
Invest in Good Ceiling Fans
A staggering number of households fail to utilize ceiling fans to their full potential. In addition to being a hindrance to home cooling efforts, failure to take proper advantage of ceiling fans is unlikely to prove beneficial to your summertime utility costs. With this in mind, make a point of investing in high-quality ceiling fans and installing them in every area of your home. The dependable products from Hunter Fan, for example, will make a welcome addition to any residence, regardless of size.
Installing reliable ceiling fans throughout your home will help ensure that the cool air produced by your central air conditioner is efficiently distributed, which can help relieve your A/C system of some of its burden. You can also enable your ceiling fans to produce downward-flowing cool breezes by adjusting their blades to spin counterclockwise.
Make A/C Maintenance a Priority
Although minimizing A/C usage can help reduce your household’s carbon footprint and save you money on utilities, it can’t be denied that air conditioning is a modern-day necessity – particularly for people who reside in warmer areas. So, while not using your A/C may not be a feasible option, there are a number of steps you can take towards lessening the financial blow.
To start with, you should make A/C maintenance a priority. Among other things, this entails having your central air conditioning system serviced at least twice a year. Additionally, if you live in an area that receives blisteringly hot temps year-round, even more, service visits may be necessary. Although service visits will cost you a little bit of money, they stand to save you a considerable sum. Seasoned heating and cooling professionals will be able to identify and remedy a wide range of small and emerging issues before they have a chance to cause some real damage – to both your A/C system and your pocketbook.
While regular service visits can go a long way towards keeping your central A/C system in peak condition, they’re not an end-all solution to every conceivable issue. No matter how meticulous you are about A/C maintenance, the occasional problem is bound to arise. And when this happens, it’s in your best interest to call in the professionals ASAP. The sooner problems are addressed, the less damage they’re likely to cause. So, while you may not like spending money on service calls, doing so can be a boon to your efforts to keep cooling costs manageable.
Upgrade Your Insulation
Good insulation can play an integral role in keeping your home safe from outdoor heat. So, if your current insulation has proven less than helpful in this regard, now would be a great time to upgrade. Furthermore, even if you’re reasonably pleased with your home’s existing insulation, it should be noted that insulation should be replaced or retrofitted every 15 to 20 years.
Like regular A/C maintenance, upgrading your home’s insulation stands to cost you money in the short term but facilitates considerable financial rewards in the long run. As an added bonus, high-quality insulation can also come in handy during the bitterly cold winter months, when it can effectively seal in warm air while minimizing the amount of cold air that finds its way inside.
Although many of us eagerly anticipate the warm weather and long days associated with summertime, none of us relish having to pay a small fortune in cooling costs each month. The hotter your locale is, the more you can expect to shell out in utilities throughout the summer months. Fortunately, keeping summer cooling costs in check is much easier than you may think. So, if you’re looking to maintain a comfortably cool home without paying an arm and a leg, but the previously discussed tips to good use.
