In my last couple of blog posts, I wrote about simple ways we can take to reduce our home monthly electricity bills. The heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system (HVAC) consume the most amount of power among all the electrical appliances at home.
In this post, I am going to focus on the HVAC and how we can improve upon it.
Setting The Thermostats
How do you set the thermostats of your air-conditioning unit? Most people will set the thermostats at the desired temperature and then leave it be.
If you want to cut your home power consumption, you have to acquire new habits, particularly on how you use the thermostats.
One of the good energy saving habit is to adjust your home’s temperature at different times of the day. You can actually achieve excellent cost savings without any decrease in your standard of living.
I know it is a pain to get up and reset the temperature controller. But trust me, you will see the benefits at the end of the month when you get your utility bill.
The traditional way of setting the temperature for your HVAC is “set and forget”. Conservation calls for setting the temperature at 68 degree Fahrenheit in the winter and 82 degree Fahrenheit in the summer.
Open The Windows
Do you shut off your air conditioner at night? If you do so, your room will likely stay cool enough for you to have a good night sleep. If the temperature is hotter outside than in, try keeping all doors and windows closed.
If your room is hotter than the outside temperature, open the windows to let the cool air in.
If your room is cold, why not use a thicker blanket.
These are simple measures you can take that will save you hundreds of dollar every month.
One other step you can take to reduce your energy bill is by using programmable thermostats. These handy units are not very expensive and it is well worth your investment.
You can install the programmable thermostats yourself or purchase one that is compatible with your existing system.
What are the benefits if you were to use a programmable thermostat at home?
1) You can make daily or weekly programs that will set the temperature in the living area up and down without your attention. If you are a lazy person, this will be your ideal friend.
2) Allow manual override so you can always set your desired temperature.
3) Setting the “occupancy feature” that can tell whether somebody is in the house, otherwise the temperature will stay at a standby level.
A programmable thermostat is a highly recommended tool you should get if you want to reduce your home power bills. The money that you will be saving in the next couple of months will be more than enough to cover the investment cost.
After I wrote this blog post, I decided to do a quick search on Amazon.com to find if they have any programmable thermostats in their inventory.
As it turns out, the top selling unit is the Hunter 44550 Auto Save 7-Day Programmable. To read more about the Hunter unit from Amazon.com, click here.
Home Solar And Wind Power Videos
Do you want to know how you can use solar modules or wind generator to reduce your home energy consumption? If you do, check out the 30 solar and wind power for home videos e-book we’ve compiled. It’s free to download.