Avoid These Home Cooling Myths

AC Myths in Northern CA

You want your house to be cool, but you don’t want to have to pay more than you need to for your cooling bills. This can push you to do some things that will actually cause you to expend even more money on your cooling in an attempt to curb the amount of money spent. Knowing what is true and what is false when it comes to energy-saving advice can help you and your family save potentially hundreds or even thousands of dollars every summer in cooling costs. Watch out for these myths about saving on cooling costs.

Air Conditioners Don’t Manufacture Coolness

One of the first things that you should know about air conditioners is that they don’t manufacture cold air, and to better understand this point, you have to think about what heat and cold are. Heat is the presence of energy, and cold is the absence of heat and energy. So when you turn on an air conditioner, it will pull hot, humid air from your house and remove the heat and moisture from it. Then, the air conditioner will pump the air that now has less heat and moisture back into the room. This is useful information to understand when you need to have your air conditioner serviced because you can better understand how the parts work together to make a more comfortable home.

An Energy-Efficient Air Conditioner Won’t Keep Your Bills Down Alone

Some people also falsely believe that an energy-efficient air conditioner can keep the cooling bills down. While they are designed to do this, they can only do it effectively if they’ve been installed properly and maintained. Even energy-efficient air conditioners need replacement filters and are prone to wear over many years, so having an experienced air conditioning technician in mind can help you keep your model running well and saving you money for years to come.

Closing Doors and Vents Won’t Save You Money

A very common misconception is that if you close the doors and vents to rooms that you’re not using, you’ll be able to save yourself cooling costs because you’ll be able to concentrate all of the cooled air into rooms that you are using. This is a misnomer because your HVAC system and air conditioner were designed to work with your whole house. This means that when you close off certain areas of the house, the only thing you’re really accomplishing is the restriction of airflow. When air isn’t flowing freely throughout the house, it makes the air conditioner work harder to pump it through the system, which causes you to use even more energy and spend more money on cooling costs.

Air Conditioners That Are Bigger Won’t Get the Job Done Better or Faster

Bigger is better, right? Not always. When it comes to air conditioners, you want your model to fit the size of your house. When the air conditioner is too big for the house, the air conditioner actually cools the house down too quickly. It doesn’t seem like this would be possible, but the problem with cooling a house quickly is that the air conditioner can’t filter out the humidity and allergens at the same rate. The air conditioner needs more cycles to dehumidify the air, so the house is left cool but still clammy after the air conditioner turns off.

Your Biggest Heat Transfer Point Is the Walls

Most people think that heat transfer happens around the windows and doors, but the place where most heat transfer occurs is actually the walls, including around the electrical outlets and pipes. You hear about it all the time because they’re the obvious places that you might expect to have heat transfer in every home, so it’s an easier problem to address. But you should look into finding the other places of heat transfer in your home. If you live in a brick home, this heat transfer will be significantly less than a wood house because brick is a much better insulator. But if you have a house that has siding as the exterior, you should hire someone to go to your house and tell you where there might be heat transfer.

Appliances Can Generate a Lot of Heat

Most people don’t even think about how much heat their appliances generate. For instance, you might think that the heat from the televisions and computers is negligible, but think about how hot a small bathroom can get when you have a curling iron on for half an hour. If you’re not using appliances, just turn them off to save yourself some money. And you’ll definitely save yourself tons of money if you’re careful about when you run large appliances that put out a lot of heat, such as the oven, stovetop, dishwasher, and clothes dryer. If you’re going out of the house for a few hours, make that the time that you run the dryer and dishwasher. Otherwise, choosing to run these two appliances in the early parts of the day will save you a lot of money. As for the oven and stovetop, avoid using them at all by cooking on the grill on hot days or just making cold meals that don’t require cooking.

Turning the Air Conditioner Off During the Day Isn’t the Best Idea

It’s common knowledge that turning the air conditioner off during the day is a great way to save a lot of money on cooling costs, but common knowledge is partially wrong in this case. People think that turning your air conditioner off will save money because you want to have to pay for cooling costs throughout most of the day. The problem with this is that it can take even more energy to cool the house down once you come home. On top of this, the price of electricity is actually the highest at around five or six in the evening because everyone else is trying to cool their homes down. A better strategy is to set the thermostat for a hotter setting than what you would normally enjoy if you were at home. This way you won’t be paying for your house to be completely cooled when you’re away, but you won’t have to expend so much energy on cooling the house down when you come home.

Turning the Temperature Way Down Won’t Help Your House Cool Down Any Faster

Plenty of people think that if you turn the thermostat to a really low temperature, you’ll get a cool house faster. Unfortunately, the air conditioner works at the same rate whether you set your thermostat to 55 degrees or the 68 degrees that you actually want your house to be at.

When you’re looking for quality services and tips about summer cooling from people who really care, contact Air Max HVAC in Burbank, CA. We can help you with your heating, air conditioning, and indoor air quality too.

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