Air conditioners are one of the biggest energy users in your home. This means summers in Florida bring high energy bills in addition to the hot weather. If high energy bills have you wanting to cut down on your energy use, you’ll want to be familiar with a variety of tips to save energy at home.
Lowering your energy bill
Tips to save energy at home deal with two areas — energy efficiency improvements deal with allowing devices to achieve the same results with less energy, and energy conservation deals with making sure devices aren’t consuming energy when they aren’t being utilized.
Improving energy efficiency
Manufacturers of most devices regularly introduce more efficient models, so one of the main ways to improve energy efficiency is by purchasing more efficient devices. More efficient devices usually cost more, but they may actually be cheaper in the long-term. To know which device offers the best value, be sure to factor in the savings a more efficient device will offer on energy bills.
You can also improve energy efficiency by ensuring that your home makes the most of the conditioned air its heating and cooling system provides. There are many things that affect this but some of the most important areas to examine for inefficiencies include insulation, air sealing and ductwork.
Energy conservation
There are many steps you can take to minimize the energy that gets wasted by devices in your home:
- Make sure you turn off lights, TVs, and other devices when leaving a room.
- Don’t operate heating or cooling systems with windows or doors open.
- Ensure that electronics aren’t using energy to maintain themselves in a standby mode when they’re turned off. An easy way to do this is to plug them into a power strip that can be switched off when they aren’t in use.
- Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees.
- Use a programmable thermostat to reduce heating and cooling use when you’re away.
For more tips to save energy at home, contact the experienced professionals at Climatic Conditioning Co., Inc. We’ve provided reliable HVAC services to residents of Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch and the surrounding area for over 40 years.
