It's Getting Hot in Here: Energy-Saving Air Conditioner Tips
Today is scorching hot. It's oppressively humid. It's a day to spend all of my nonworking hours in a swimming pool. It's a day to give in and crank up the AC. But air conditioning, as we learned years ago, fuels global warming. Here are a few eco-friendly ways to beat the heat and keep your energy bills low.
- Turn the air conditioner off when you're at work if you don't have any pets. See if your company offers time-of-use pricing, where you pay only for the hours you're in the house with the AC on, for even more savings.
- If you're buying an air conditioner, make sure it's Energy Star rated.
- Don't place lamps or other appliances near your thermostat—they radiate heat that will cause it to run longer.
- Electric fans use 90 percent less energy than air conditioning, so switch them on for days that aren't as hot.
- Pull down the shades on the sunny side of your house during the day.
- Avoid using your oven, if possible, and skip your dishwasher's drying cycle, which fans hot moisture into your kitchen.
- Try a bed fan, or for the fashion-fearless, a shirt with a built-in fan.
- Or, if you're patient, you can wait until solar-powered air conditioning becomes available.
Tags: environment | global warming | energy
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Reader Comments
Air condidtion your home or not???
I would have to agree with Deana of TX,she is right, rather turn down your air con so that it doesn't have to work extra hard again when you switch it on again, we are all trying to do our best not to use too much energy, and to save our planet, if we all do our bit it will help in the long run then doing nothing.
www.smsystems.co.za
Saving on AC
A basic principle: it takes far more than two times the energy to cool the air two degrees than to cool it one degree. As with wind resistance & speed, it's a geometrical relation, not an arithmetical one.
Cool one room more than the rest of the house, & hang out in that room. Put your TV, computer, and exercise machine in that room. With kids, you'll need 2 rooms.
When showering, use cool water for a few minutes before you get out. This feels good & lowers your body temp so you won't get all sweaty as soon as you get out. The cool water takes a few minutes to draw the heat out of your body. (You'll find out how long it takes by the amount of after-shower sweating.) Drying/dressing in front of a fan while damp enhances evaporative cooling. Do one or both & you won't need as cool a room to get dressed in.
Set the AC to “not-hot”, instead of cool, 77 instead of 72. (Losing weight? Eat until “not-hungry” instead of full.)
Reduce your sunny-day cooling load with a sprinkler hose along your roof ridge. Attach it to the roof cap with some bent wire, & run a lightweight hose to the ground. Running it on hot days for just long enough to wet the roof will cool the roof & all the structural materials under it. The water will evaporate quickly at first; it can take about 5-8 minutes (a shower's worth of water) to cool it to the point where it leaves the whole roof wet. On a very humid, 100-degree day, doing this once mid-afternoon & once about 3 hours before sunset reduces the inside temperature about 10-15 degrees for the evening in a wood-framed ranch house with 14" of attic insulation. With no AC. Those rafters/trusses & shingles can hold a lot of heat & radiate it down into the house thru the night. This works on humid days, too, because the roof temperature is so much hotter than the air temperature that it reduces the relative humidity at the roof surface. It's the evaporation that does the cooling, so when the roof is fully wet, shut off the water.
AC was rare before the 60s, and people lived without it. The "never let 'em see you sweat" aesthetic is a result of anti-perspirant advertisers' playing on people's social insecurities & subconsciously manipulating them to perceive sweat as disgusting. This manipulation has been effective, & this aesthetic has made AC a kind of sacred cow. One hears often about the energy waste of SUVs and incandescent bulbs, but rarely about the aggregate energy cost of AC, which is far bigger than both of the others. Keep your body clean, and sweat isn't a problem. Question those manipulated intuitions and associations and generate some indignation about having been manipulated by Madison Ave. You can still keep cool, but you'll do so by choice, not because of some neurotic compulsion you've been conditioned into by big business to sell anti-perspirants.
CEILING FANS & COOLING
AN EASIER WAY TO REMEMBER WHICH WAY CEILING FANS GO. IN SUMMER THEY SHOULD GO CLOCKWISE AND IN WINTER COUNTER CLOCKWISE.
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