We’ve reached the true heat of a Texas summer, and if you’re like many people across the country, your electric bills probably spiked as you started to crank the air conditioner. Cooling your home is one of the biggest drains on your wallet and your community’s resources during the summer. It’s important that you stay safe, healthy, and comfortable, and protecting your wallet and the environment doesn’t have to necessarily mean giving up on those elements. With these energy conservation tips from Healthy Home 365 – and our energy-saving, eco-friendly products – you can reduce your impact on the environment and on your savings. Keep reading to learn what steps you can take to save and explore our broad selection of products to see what works for you!
Service Your HVAC System
Your AC unit is critical during the hot Texas summers. Make sure it’s in peak condition with regularly scheduled maintenance and care. There are a lot of factors that can affect the efficacy and efficiency of your HVAC system, and if you don’t address problems when they first crop up, it could mean an uncomfortable home, an overworked appliance, or both. The simplest step to take is to keep your HVAC system clean. That means clearing any debris away from the outdoor register to make sure it can work properly and changing out dirty air filters, which can block air flow and force your AC unit to work harder. You should also invest in a professional ductwork cleaning the same way you invest in professional HVAC maintenance — many companies can do both, as long as you request it when you schedule your service call.
Better Insulate Your Home
The key to energy conservation is to prevent energy from transferring to and from your house. In the summer, that means keeping the cool air inside and the hot air outside of your home as best you can. Healthy Home 365 has several products you can use for more involved projects, such as replacing the old, traditional insulation in your home with our innovative fiberglass insulation or utilizing our insulating paint. There are also small, easy steps you can take to better conserve energy, like closing the blinds on your windows during the day. Not only will it prevent sunlight from heating up the inside of your house, but it will also add an extra layer to trap the cool air inside. If you want to better address the energy conservation vulnerabilities of windows, you may consider insulated window treatments.
Save Heat-Generating Activities for Nighttime
Your HVAC system already has to work hard to cool your home despite the heat outside. When you generate heat inside your home, it has to work even harder. If there are a few chores you need to do, whether that means using an electric dryer to finish laundry or cranking up the oven to finish a few treats for a bake sale, you can give your AC unit a reprieve by waiting until the heat outside eases. When night falls and temperatures drop, then your HVAC will have less to compete with as it cools your home, and using heat-generating appliances won’t stress it to the same degree.
Choose Targeted Cooling Methods
One of the biggest wastes of energy is cooling parts of your home that you’re not using or asking your HVAC to maintain a low temperature even when you’re not there. There are a few ways you can counter this, with both high-tech and low-tech solutions. For rooms you don’t use, like the attic or guest room, you can keep the doors and the vents closed to minimize the amount of energy that goes to trying to regulate their temperature. You should also try to remember to turn down the air conditioning when you leave for the day, at least by several degrees.
A programmable thermostat can make both of those tasks simple. Many have the option to program different “zones” of the house, so you don’t have to cool the basement when you’re upstairs in bed or vice versa. You can also set it to automatically adjust the temperature for times when you’re asleep or away at work. The Department of Energy recommends turning down your air conditioning by at least seven or eight degrees for about eight hours a day to make a real difference in your energy consumption. With a programmable thermostat like Nest, you can even set it to readjust the house to the temperature you prefer right before you come home, so you don’t feel the effects.
Use Energy-Saving Products
There are a lot of options and innovations on the market to help you in your energy conservation goals, and Healthy Home 365 works hard to bring those innovations to you in Richardson. We offer a wide variety of eco-friendly products to help you create an energy-efficient home, from our aforementioned insulation to a solar-powered attic ventilation system made to regulate the temperature in a hard-to-reach and hard-to-regulate area of your home. Explore all of Healthy Home 365’s products and services today to see what you can use to create the green home of your dreams. We’re here for you if you want advice, or if you have questions about any of our environmentally-friendly products. Call now to learn more about Healthy Home 365 and keep an eye on this blog for even more energy-saving tips!
