Go Green

With summer right up the corner and temperatures shooting up to the sky, you need to do all you can to air condition your home. Running the air conditioner up to its full capacity can skyrocket the electricity bills. But you can always reduce that by some simple tricks.

Here Are Some Tips To Handle The Heat In A Green Way:

• Get your air conditioner examined for efficiency: Call a licensed and experienced HVAC professional and get all your air conditioning units inspected to ensure that they function properly and that its cooling is efficient enough so that you get enough cooling for the amount of electricity it consumes.
• Keep your blinds closed: As simple as it may sound, you have no idea how effective this trick is. It has been noted that more than 30 percent of the heating happens due to the heat rays coming in through the windows. The air conditioners would be more effective and helps you save over 9 percent of energy consumption. In general, closing the blinds prevents the house becoming a miniature greenhouse. This can be even more effective in case you have south and west facing windows.
• Get rid of the incandescent lights in your homes: You may not know this but the incandescent lights release a lot of heat and that can reduce the effect of air conditioning. They consume more energy and release more heat and thus causes double losses. Instead get some CFL or LED bulbs which consume less energy without releasing more heat.
• Check the filters of your air conditioners: Check the filters at least once per month. Replace them if needed and clean them regularly. Especially during summer, dust and allergens circulate through the air conditioner all day and clog up the filters up. Clean filters supply more amount of cooling at the same amount of energy consumption. Cleaning or replacing the filters as required improves the performance of air conditioners manifold.
• Use fans instead of air conditioners in a smart way: There are some simple ways of air conditioning the home without even switching on your air conditioner. Keep a bowl of ice near a table fan and turn it on and the air whips off the ice and gives an extra-chilled and extra-misty temperature to your room.
• Let the night air in and act as a natural air conditioner: The temperatures at night drop and that drop in temperature comes with a cool soft breeze. All you need to do is open the windows before going to bed to let in the cool breeze. This will reduce the work of the air conditioner and thus the consumption reduces. But make sure that you shut the doors and windows and pull down the blinds before the sun comes out.
• Plant as many trees as you can around your property: The nature has the solution to every problem, no matter what. What better a solution to air condition your home without even spending a penny is to plant trees around your property and get the benefit of the cool shades for a lifetime?
• Invest in window films: Window films not only keep out the sun but keep out the heat as well. So getting window films can boost up the home air conditioning. This can work both ways. It can keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

Apart from all these tricks, you should know that keeping the body cool from within is equally essential during summers. All our ancestors did not have air conditioners to keep them cool and all their tricks of keeping cool were really effective like sipping tasty iced drinks and applying a cold cloth to strong-pulsed areas like your neck and wrists, cooling yourself from the inside out is a really good idea.

Article written by contributor; Evan Javier, [email protected]