I was reading a post this morning on One Caveman’s Financial Journey called 13 Free or Cheap Ways To Keep Your Home Cool This Summer. I can relate to this post as I found the temperature to be 91 degrees in our house when I got home from work yesterday. My wife and I had a goal to not turn on our air conditioning until June 1st this year to help reduce our energy costs. Once we met that goal, we thought we could make it until June 15th. That was until it got into the 90’s yesterday and the forecast of 98 degrees today and highs in the 90’s for at least the next 8 days. As a result of the recent high temperatures, we will be turning on the AC today.
There are a few of the 13 Free or Cheap Ways To Keep Your Home Cool This Summer that I wanted to comment on as they pertain to our goals for keeping energy costs down.
- #1 - Open Your Windows - I completely agree with this point. Anytime that the air is cooler outside than it is in our house, the air stays off and the windows stay open. We have actually been benefiting from some nice breezes lately that have helped a lot by keeping the windows open. The neighbors right next door to us have had their AC on non-stop since late April when highs were still in the mid 70’s. I can’t even imagine what their energy bills are.
- #2 - Turn On the Ceiling Fans - I also agree with One Caveman’s Financial Journey in regards to using ceiling fans as much as possible. We broke down and purchased 8 ceiling fans in the past two months to put in just about every room in our house. They have worked great so far!
- #4 - Shut the Blinds - Again I agree with this point. When we don’t have the windows open, the blinds are all the way down. If the windows are open, then we have the blinds down 1/2 way to block out as much sun as possible.
- #7 - Turn Up The Thermostat A Degree Or Two - When the AC goes on today, it will probably be set at around 83 - 85 degrees. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you go into someone’s house or store and it is freezing because the AC is set so low. In fact, I wore a light jacket this morning at work for a couple hours because it was so cold in the building. This is a complete waste of energy as far as I am concerned.
- #8. Close Unused Vents - Excellent point! We closed off the vents to all of our bathrooms when we moved in (summer & winter they will be closed) and several of our other rooms we don’t spend a lot of time in (i.e. dining room). It really makes no sense to cool smaller rooms while the room where the thermostat sits tries to get cool.
An additional item that I wanted to add to our list of keeping the house cool is to plant some trees around the house to help shade during the summer months. While this won’t really help us this summer, we plan on planting shade trees on the southwest side of the house which gets the afternoon sun that really heats up the house. Hopefully in a few years, we can have the benefit of some nice trees in our yard with the side benefit of helping to cool our house in the summer.
For a review of my monthly budget, please see my recent post - May 2008 - Family Budget Review.
How do you plan on staying cool this summer? Do you have other ways of staying cool that were not mentioned in the One Caveman’s Financial Journey article?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ralph 06.05.08 at 3:23 pm
The one thing that I consider as important as the rest of the 13 tips is to make sure you replace your filters regularly. Decreased airflow from a clogged filter will have a big impact on performance.
That One Caveman 06.05.08 at 3:37 pm
Thanks for the commentary. I agree with the trees, but I didn’t consider it “free or cheap” since the tree I put in was about $150. Long-term it is very cheap, just not in the short-term.
Ralph,
Man, I can’t believe I forgot that one, too. That’s a very cheap thing that many people forget (or don’t eve know) to do.
Mark @ TheLocoMono 06.05.08 at 5:55 pm
One thing about opening your windows that most people forget about is to lower the top half of the window more than the bottom half. (This used to be done way back in the old days).
Hot air rises so in order to have hot air escape, you want to allow hot air more room to leave at the top and little room on the bottom to allow cooler air to come in.
Great post. Added you to my Blogroll by the way.
passivefamilyincome 06.06.08 at 6:26 am
Ralph - Excellent point. I actually forgot that I hadn’t changed mine in a while and went out and got some new ones last evening!
Caveman - Good point on the cost of the trees.
Mark - Very interesting point. I have actually never heard of that idea. I will go home and try it. Thanks for adding me to your blogroll. I will do the same!
Pete @ biblemoneymatters 06.17.08 at 10:34 am
the new logo looks good up there!