Cool, man!
July 25th, 2005 | by mbhunter |MSN Money has 25 cheap ways to keep your house cooler, an article drawn from the Department of Energy’s Energy Savers program.
This article combines some common-sense suggestions with some not-so-common ones. It’s a good mix. Some caveats on a few of these suggestions, though:
Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents; they produce the same light but use a fifth the energy and heat.
Very true. Before running out and buying enough to outfit your house, make sure that the CFs will fit in your fixtures; you may need to opt for the helical bulb type of CF, instead of the cheaper ones with a single long loop. Second, check to see that your switches are CF compatible. Some types of dimmer switches and vacation timers are not compatible with CFs.
Use a programmable thermostat with your air conditioner to adjust the setting at night or when no one is home.
It is true that you’re saving energy while the AC isn’t running. But the kicker is you have to start it up again, and for some units this start-up takes a lot of energy. That, and you need to bring down the temperature more if it’s been off all day, which takes more energy. We had a repairperson replace the motor on our compressor unit about a year ago, and he said that it was usually cheaper just to leave the AC running rather than start and stop it all the time.
Related point: If you are going to buy a window AC unit, size the unit as close as you can to the room. Just as too small isn’t good, really big isn’t good either. Because the unit will be powerful enough to cool the room quickly, it will also turn on and turn off more, which uses a lot of energy.
So, turning the AC way down or off may be fine if you’re going away for a week, but doing it too much is going to cost you.
Plug home electronics, such as TVs and VCRs, into power strips and turn power strips off when equipment is not in use.
This is also a good idea because it protects the electronic equipment better than if the equipment were plugged directly into the wall. Just be careful not to overload the circuit in the process.
