8 Tips to Keep Your House Cool Without Overworking Your AC Unit

Keeping your Lake Placid, Florida, home cool during the hot summer months is crucial to staying comfortable. Your air conditioning system works hard to keep your home cool and reduce humidity levels. But as the temperatures soar, it can work harder than normal. The harder your system works, the quicker the components will wear down, reducing the life of your system. Yet, if you follow these tips, you can lend your AC unit a hand while keeping your home cool and comfortable:

Keep Your Curtains and Blinds Drawn

When the sun is at its highest and beaming through the windows, you can help reduce the heat in your home by closing your blinds and drawing your curtains. By keeping your windows covered during peak times, you’ll reduce the unwanted heat in your home by up to 30 percent. You can actually lower your temperature up to 20 degrees. To reduce the absorbed heat even more, use light-colored blinds, which will reflect the light instead of absorbing it.

Limit Appliance Use During the Afternoon

In the afternoon, the temperature outside is at its hottest. Running your appliances at this time can add a significant amount of heat to your home. While it may be hard not to use your stove during the day, you can wait until the evening hours to run your washer, dryer or dishwasher.

Run Your Ceiling Fans

Ceiling fans help to circulate the air around your room. They provide a cooling effect that can reduce the temperature. They also aid in drawing the cool air down where it can lower the temperature in the entire room. As a result, you’ll feel cooler with cranking the AC unit.

Program Your Thermostat

Creating a program for your thermostat can reduce the impulse to crank the temperature down when you feel hot. With a set program, your air conditioning unit will keep your home a consistent temperature, gradually increasing it when you’re away and reducing it by the time you arrive home.

When setting your thermostat program, increase the temperature by at least 10 degrees when you know you’ll be away. As a result, you can give your AC unit a much-needed break when there’s no one home.

Rid Your Home of Incandescent Lights

If you still have incandescent lights, now’s the time to make the switch to compact fluorescent lamps. Incandescent bulbs emit 90 percent of their energy through heat, which can cause a room to warm up quickly. Making the switch can help to not only cool your home but also lower your energy bills.

Shade Your Home From the Outside

Shading your home from the sun’s hot rays can reduce the amount of heat that enters your home. Start with the windows that get the most sun. Consider planting trees, bushes, or shrubs a foot away from them so that they can block or filter the sun’s rays. You can also put up trellises and archways, or grow climbing vines and flowers. If you don’t have a green thumb, consider investing in an awning.

Replace Damaged or Worn Insulation

As insulation ages, it’s likely to become damaged or worn in some areas. When this occurs, heat can come into the home and conditioned air can escape. Add insulation in worn areas, making sure to pay attention to insulation around ductwork. If your insulation has been damaged by water or pests, consider giving it an upgrade.

Maintain Your Air Conditioning Unit

An important part of keeping your home cool and making sure your air conditioning unit isn’t working harder than it should is by keeping it clean and well-maintained. Change your filter at least once a month, and schedule air conditioning service twice a year. The better you maintain your AC unit, the more efficiently it’ll run.

Give your air conditioning unit a hand this summer by using the above tips to help keep your home cool. Get started by scheduling your air conditioning service with Miller’s Central Air, Inc. Contact us today at 863-699-5455.

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