Things You'll Need:
- Discipline
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Step 1
The best way to lower your summer energy usage is to lower the heat generated inside your home. So in summer close the drapes/blinds on any window / door which allows direct sunlight into the house. At night when the temperatures are cooler, shut the cooling unit and open the windows. In effect you prevent heat being generated during the day and vent the inside heat to the outside during the night
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Step 2
If you do not have a programmable thermostat, invest in one. During the day when everyone is out of the house, you can program a higher setting of 85-90 deg. Sometimes in the evening when we all go out to some social gathering for more than 2 hours we shut off the air conditioning before we leave.
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Step 3
If you have extra rooms like guest rooms that nobody uses, close the vents in these rooms and shut the doors. It is a waste of energy cooling rooms which nobody uses.
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Step 4
Invest in a ceiling fan or a pedestal fan. At night we use only 2-3 bedrooms for ourselves and the kids. It is no use cooling the whole house. So we shut off the air conditioner, open the windows in these rooms and use the fans.
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Step 5
Next is the appliances. Most appliances generate heat in the house. So we try as much as possible to use the outdoor grill (especially weekends). Also we minimized the use of washer / dryer to once a week or only when it is full capacity. Even that we do during evening / night when the temperatures are lower.
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Step 6
We read in some article that incandescent lamps convert 95% of the energy that go into them into heat rather than light. So we replaced most of the bulbs / lighting in our house to CFC except in places of high humidity like bathrooms. We always make it a point to turn lights off when not in use. During summer months in the evenings we try to use natural light as much as possible.
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Step 7
Always clean the air filters on the air conditioning unit. All the accumulated dirt will lower air flow and the compressor has to work harder reducing efficiency.
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Step 8
Next is the power drain from all our entertainment appliances. We have all our gadgets like television, DVD Players, Computers etc connected to power surge strips. We turn them off when not in use and at night. We also found that this somehow extended the life of these electronic goods.
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Step 9
Finally if you are into the green earth and you can afford it, you can install solar panels and wind turbines. I saw a news report about a PepsiCo building in Chicago which uses wind turbines and solar panels and is 95% self sustaining as far as utilities are concerned.
