One of the best ways to save money in the summer is to have an air conditioner that works well. There are a few ways to ensure that your air conditioner works well this summer, which will keep your family from having to deal with any hot-house broken-air-conditioner days and will save you money in the long run.
One way to make sure your air conditioner stays in good shape is to have a professional come in for a maintenance appointment every year before the cooling season. This might seem like an unnecessary expense, but it can keep you from having to actually pay to repair your air conditioner, which can be very expensive and annoying. Besides this, keeping up on your air conditioner maintenance can keep the whole system clean, and it can give you some notice about when things might need replaced. That way, you can at least see it coming when an expensive repair might be in your near future or when you might need to replace your air conditioning system
Another way to keep your air conditioner in good shape is to run it less often. Throughout the summer, you can go easy on your air conditioner by setting your thermostat up a little bit higher, which can also save on your energy costs, of course. Besides this, you can keep your south-facing windows covered by curtains or blinds, which can help keep your rooms much cooler even without the air conditioner. Also, putting exhaust fans in your warmest rooms and running ceiling fans along with your air conditioning system can help you save on air conditioning and run your system less.
You can also keep your system working less by shading the actual air conditioner if it is outside of your home. Make sure that you don’t plant anything too close to the box, but put trees or tall, decorative grasses around the air conditioning box that will keep it cooler so that it has to work less. Besides making your air conditioner work less, this can also hide that unsightly metal contraption from the comfort of your back yard.
If you’re building a house from scratch or completely redoing your HVAC system, you can use this same concept to keep your air conditioner cooler. Put the air conditioning unit on the north side of your home where it will be shaded for most of the day, especially during the hottest parts of the day. This way, you can keep your air conditioning unit in the shade without having to rely on the landscaping.
Although you’ll always have to replace your air conditioning system in a timely fashion, you’ll be able to keep it in better shape for longer if you can keep it from running quite as hard. Keeping your air conditioned maintained on a regular basis will also help it stay in better shape. Taking all these simple steps can save you lots of money in air conditioning costs, and it can also help save you from expensive air conditioner repairs.
There’s no doubt about it: air conditioning is expensive. Paying to keep your home environment cool all summer can take major chunks out of your bank account, but there are ways that you can alleviate this problem by using your energy more efficiently. Energy-efficient air conditioning isn’t just about buying a whole new system; it is also about learning to use the system that you have efficiently.
1. Set the Thermostat High
It may seem uncomfortable to walk into a house that is only a few degrees cooler than the outside world, but running your air conditioner to shreds by setting your thermostat at seventy degrees all summer is ridiculous. Then you just end up needing to put on long sleeves and pull out blankets when you’re in the house, as your light, short summer clothes are uncomfortable then. Instead of having a freezing home, simply set your thermostat high and leave it up higher when no one is home during the day.
2. Use a Dehumidifier
Most people know that dry heat is way easier to endure than humid heat, which is why many people in sunny, dry Arizona will walk around in the summer quite comfortable in long sleeves while people in Florida take off all the clothes they decently can, even when it’s ten degrees cooler than Phoenix. If you want to avoid running your air conditioner simply to pull humidity out of the air, get a couple of dehumidifiers for your home, which can seriously help the problem.
3. Pull Out Hot Air
Trying to cool your home while firing up the stove and the oven can be a major annoyance. Using an exhaust fan can help this problem, but if you don’t have one of these over your stove, you can help cool your kitchen simply by setting up a fan on the floor. In conjunction with your air conditioner, this will help your kitchen stay comfortable even as you slave away.
4. Shade When It’s Needed
You may already be aware that pulling the curtains over your south-facing windows on those hot summer days can make your home more comfortable by several degrees, but did you know that shading your air-conditioning unit can help it run more efficiently? If you get to choose where to put your A/C unit, you should place it on the shady north side of your home. If not, plant trees or tall grass around the unit, which can help it stay cooler, working more efficiently. Besides this, the plants will shade your home, keeping it naturally cooler, and hide the air conditioning unit from sight.
5. Buy an Energy-Efficient Unit
If you’re really struggling to keep up with the electricity bills during the summer, it may be that you need a new air conditioning unit. Energy-efficient air conditioning when used in conjunction with all these other energy-saving ideas could help you cool your home more efficiently, and buying a new unit could very well save you hundreds of dollars a year.
Currently, the government is so interested in economic rehabilitation and environmental issues that it is offering tax credits to homeowners who install energy efficient appliances, windows, and even insulation. Besides saving money by getting a bigger tax rebate – or, at least, paying less in taxes – this year, you can save money over the long term on your overall energy costs.
What is Eligible for the Tax Credit
Until the end of next year, you can spend money replacing your windows, insulation, roof, doors, and heating and cooling equipment with better, more efficient models, and the government will refund thirty percent of your costs up to $1,500. This can add up to a lot of savings, especially if you need to replace both your furnace and your air conditioning unit.
What’s more, if you replace your old heating and cooling system with a geothermal heat pump, which actually uses the earth’s heat in the winter and dumps heat out of the home into the earth in the summer, you can save 30% of the total cost without any limits. Combine this with specials that many heating and cooling companies are already running, and you can save some major cash.
How does it Work?
Basically, you’ll need to keep your receipts. At the end of the year when you’re itemizing your tax breaks, you’ll file for this rebate. The best part about a tax credit – as opposed to the normal tax deduction that you’ll get for charitable giving and the like – is that it’s a dollar-for-dollar deal.
This means that if you spend $5,000 on a new heating and cooling system for your home, you can apply for the full $1,500 tax credit. If you end up getting a tax rebate, the government will send you an extra $1,500, and if you owed the government, say, $2,000 at the end of the year, you would only have to pay $500 of that because your tax credit would offset the rest.
Not the Only Way to Save
Besides the tax credit, though, installing a new energy-efficient heating and cooling system in your home can save you money in repair costs and energy costs. If you current system is more than a decade old, chances are likely that it’s going to start having some major problems within the next few years, and paying to fix these issues can take a huge chunk of change. Newer systems will need fewer repairs, and they’ll probably be covered by warranties for a while, making them a safe investment.
Today’s technology in heating and cooling can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars a year in heating and cooling costs. If you live in a very cold area, a 90% efficient furnace could save you an average of $1,600 per year, and a very efficient air conditioning system in a hot area can do the same. You really can’t go wrong with this deal.
