Cooling Your Home: 3 Ways You Can Save Money & Energy This Summer

When summer rolls around, cooling costs can quickly deplete your household budget. Since this is also the time that you want to spend vacationing with your family, a depleted budget is the last thing that you want. So, there has to be a few tricks to reduce energy use without having to sacrifice your comfort, right? Lucky for you, there are. In fact, here are three of them that will help you conserve both energy and money this summer:

1. Plant Trees Strategically Around Your Home

The heat that builds up inside your home comes mainly from direct sunlight. You have several options to help reduce the amount of sun that hits your home directly. One of these is to plant trees around the exterior of your home. These trees, when placed strategically in your yard, will help to block the sunlight from heating up the interior of your home while also helping to boost your curb appeal. It's a win-win situation!

2. Make Use of Your Ceiling Fans

While most people will run to the thermostat and turn it up to cool off, sometimes all you really need to do is to switch on the ceiling fan. In fact, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), says that ceiling fans can help reduce a room's temperature by 10 degrees. In addition, the NRDC says that air conditioners use 10 percent more energy that a ceiling fan. So, in the long run, you'll save energy and stay cooler by putting your home ceiling fans to use.

3. Set Your Thermostat Correctly

By setting your thermostat to the right temperature, you can save up to 10 percent on a yearly basis. This requires keeping your house seven to 10 degrees warmer for a period of eight hours at a time (such as when you're at work/school or sleeping). Then, when you're at home and need to cool the home, try to set the thermostat to, or as close to, 78 degrees to keep your cooling costs to a minimum.

If you can invest in a programmable thermostat, it will make adjusting temperatures easier for you. You can program the thermostat to switch the temperature at certain times of the day so that you don't have to worry about remembering to do it yourself.

To learn more about saving money on your energy bill this summer or to have a programmable thermostat installed in your home, contact HVAC services in your area today. 


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