Summer will soon be upon us and the focus will rapidly shift from keeping your home warm to keeping it cool. This can, however, be an expensive business as air conditioning comes at a significant cost.
This article offers five suggestions to help you save money on keeping your home cool this summer.
- TURN UP THE THERMOSTAT
This might sound like an overly simple suggestion, but turn up the thermostat to a comfortable ambient temperature, as when you’re boiling hot the instinct is to set the temperature way lower than what you actually need – after all you don’t need to live in a freezer! Keep doors and windows shut to keep the cool air in, and set the temperature to a constant comfortable temperature rather than turning up the dial each time you feel too hot after being outside.
- MAKE USE OF A TIMER
The majority of modern thermostats come with the ability to programme a timer – meaning the air conditioning system will kick in just before you get home. There’s no point keeping your house cool all day long if you’re not going to be there to enjoy the comfort of this.
- LIMIT THE NUMBER OF ROOMS YOU COOL
In reality, you probably don’t “live” in every room of our house.
If there are a couple of rooms that you don’t use often, consider closing the door on these rooms as cooling down this unused space will cost you a significant amount money. With regard to this, there are many modern systems that use several thermostats placed throughout your house to control the temperature of individual zones – reducing the amount of wasted energy used heating or cooling rooms that aren’t being used.
- INSULATE
Insulation is known for keeping the heat in, but things like energy efficient windows can help to keep the heat out too. That said, it’s a case of swings and roundabouts when it comes to insulation because heat rises, therefore heat tends to escape mostly through the roof which can be great in winter, but in the summer months, you want the heat to be able to escape through the roof like a chimney – so consider installing some roof windows that can be kept open throughout the day in order to let the hot air naturally escape through the roof.
- WEAR LESS CLOTHES
Again, this sounds incredibly simple, but so many of us will have the air conditioning unit blasting out such cold air that we feel the need to dive under the duvet in order to keep warm; just because it’s hot outside doesn’t mean you need to turn your home into an icebox, that you then need to wrap up warm in… it kind of defeats the point.
Similarly, there’s no need to turn into a naturist, you just need to keep a healthy level of awareness as to what it is you’re wearing and similar to in winter, how people wear an extra jumper in order to keep warm you might want to consider taking off a few layers in order to remain comfortable in the heat.
Similarly, when it comes to sleeping at night you’ll want to adapt your bedding so that it’s more suitable and comfortable for hot temperatures at night.
