Save Money on Air Conditioning This Summer

In the typical home, air conditioning uses more electricity than anything else–16% of total electricity used. In warmer regions, air conditioning can be 60-70% of your summer electric bill.

Here are a few tips for saving money this summer on cooling and air conditioning costs:

  1. Raise the temperature. Each degree below 78 increases your energy use by 3-4%.
  2. Install ceiling fans in areas where you don’t have them. Ceiling fans use very little energy and can make the temperature seem up to 10 degrees cooler, drastically reducing your need for AC.
  3. Make sure your ceiling fan is spinning the right way. Make sure your fan is blowing down, to send air past your body, removing the hot air that surrounds your body. How do you know which direction is up and which is down? For most fans, when you’re standing underneath the fan and looking up, counter-clockwise blows down and clockwise blows up. Most fans have an up/down or left/right switch on the side of the fan (typically unlabeled) to change the fan direction. Make sure the fan is off (not spinning) before you flip the switch or you can damage the motor.
  4. It’s a myth that leaving the air conditioner on while your away at work uses less energy than turning it on when you get home. Running the air conditioner when you’re not home wastes energy, period.
  5. Clean or replace your air conditioner’s filter regularly. A dirty filter makes your air conditioner work harder, which uses more electricty.
  6. Use drapes or blinds to block sunlight. Direct sunlight can raise the temperature of a room by 10-20 degrees.
  7. Reduce heat from lighting. Lights create heat which your air conditioning system has to remove. Consider installing compact flourescent (CFL) bulbs, which use 75% less energy and create 70-90% less heat at the same time. Whichever type of lighting you choose, turn it off when you’re not using it.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 20:09 and is filed under Ways to Save. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.