As the mercury rises, take proactive measures to slash your cooling bill. Whether you rent or own, these 5 low- and no-cost tips ensure you won\u2019t experience a high-priced energy burn this summer.<\/p>\n
1. Use a ceiling fan or other circulating fan. It can make you feel six or seven degrees cooler via the wind-chill effect: A fan doesn\u2019t cool a room, it just makes it more comfortable to be in. \u201cJust remember to turn off the fan when no one\u2019s enjoying it. Otherwise, you waste electricity,\u201d says Ronnie Kweller, spokesperson for the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy, which promotes worldwide energy-conservation initiatives. If you also use an air conditioner, a ceiling fan helps disperse cooled air more efficiently and allows you to raise its thermostat by as much as four degrees, with little or no discomfort.<\/p>\n
2. Run your AC more economically. \u201cSetting your AC as high as is comfortably possible and using a programmable thermostat to increase temperature when you\u2019re out, or asleep, could easily decrease your summer cooling bill by 10%. The difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures throughout the summer season, the less you\u2019ll spend. Set your AC\u2019s thermostat to 78\u00baF instead of 74\u00baF (if you don\u2019t mind some heat) and you could lop as much as 18% off your summer cooling costs. Coming into to a hot house? Turning the AC to a colder-than-normal setting won\u2019t cool rooms any faster.<\/p>\n
3. Maintain cooling systems. It\u2019s not enough to use an energy-efficient AC and install a programmable thermostat. If you don\u2019t properly care for your equipment, it won\u2019t reduce your cooling costs. Dirty AC filters block airflow and make units work harder to cool your home. Cleaning and\/or replacing filters once per month will lower an AC\u2019s energy consumption by 15%.<\/p>\n
4. Close curtains, blinds and shades. Whatever your treatments, you\u2019ll see significant savings if you work to prevent solar heat gain by keeping them drawn all day. When completely closed and lowered on a sunny window, highly reflective blinds can reduce heat gain by around 40%. Try to use light-colored treatments: The lighter the hue, the more they\u2019ll deflect the sun\u2019s scorching rays. Hang shades as close to windowpanes as possible, as this enables them to also block outdoor heat from radiating inside.<\/p>\n
Consider insulated and\/or reflective shades, which will also save you money come heating season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the mercury rises, take proactive measures to slash your cooling bill. Whether you rent or own, these 5 low- and no-cost tips ensure you won\u2019t experience a high-priced energy burn this summer. 1. Use a ceiling fan or other circulating fan. It can make you feel six or seven degrees cooler via the wind-chill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1141,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/1141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airunique.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}