Keep Cooling Costs Down With These 5 Tips

Maintaining your home’s comfort level throughout Orlando’s long cooling season can put a big dent in your yearly energy budget. These tips can help you keep household cooling costs comfortably under control.

Tips to Reduce Home Cooling Costs

• Upgrade to a programmable thermostat. Pick an easy-to-program model that matches your weekly routine. Use it to schedule daily 10- to 15-degree temperature adjustments for eight hours or more and lower your annual energy consumption by up to 10 percent.
• Control heat gain and humidity to reduce the A/C’s work load. Install energy-efficient window coverings to keep out the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Avoid generating extra heat indoors by skipping the heated-dry option on the dishwasher, hanging laundry out to dry instead of running the clothes dryer, and cooking outdoors on the grill instead of using the oven or range. Send excess humidity outdoors by running the range’s exhaust fan when you do cook, and switching on the bathroom exhaust fan when showering or bathing.
• Air seal and insulate to limit energy losses. Check for gaps, cracks and holes around windows, exterior doors and shell penetrations, and seal them using either caulk, self-adhesive weatherstripping or an expandable foam product. Insulate the upper side of the attic hatch and weatherstrip its edges to keep conditioned air down in your living area. Assess your attic insulation as well, and make sure you have the recommended minimum total of R-38.
• Have the ducting properly sealed and insulated. Hire a pro to inspect the duct system and correct deficiencies to stop wasting up to a third of the air conditioner’s output. The tech will fix disconnected or damaged sections, seal leaks with fiberglass mesh and mastic sealant, then wrap ducting in unconditioned areas like the attic or crawl space with R-6 insulation.
• Update older, inefficient cooling equipment. Invest in a new high-efficiency air conditioner and you’ll cut yearly cooling-related energy costs by 20 to 50 percent. You can boost those savings another 15 percent by choosing an Energy Star-certified unit.

To learn other effective ways to keep cooling costs reasonable in your Orlando home, contact the comfort pros at Rinaldi’s Energy Solutions today.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about lowering cooling costs and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Credit/Copyright Attribution: “SSCREATIONS/Shutterstock”