I’m pretty amazed that I haven’t gotten together a cost cutting strategy when it comes to HVAC cooling until this year.
I’ve lived in this region for 4 years and that’s too long not to get real about air conditioning costs.
This region is just notorious for blazing heat during the summer months. So when we first moved down here, we were pretty overwhelmed by just how intense the summer heat really was. Initially, we tended to stay inside the air conditioning a bit too much. Trying to wait out the summer heat by sticking to only HVAC treated spaces is a wasted of time and all the cool outdoor stuff around here. So that was our first step. We had to acclimate a bit more to the heat. That meant we were very conscious of the when we started up the air conditioning. Waiting later to go all in on the HVAC cooling really helped us get accustomed to life here in the summer. We were able to get out more but mostly in the morning and the evening. The heat of the day is still spent inside the HVAC cooling comfort of our home. But this year, we are going to do some basics we haven’t done before to rein in the HVAC cooling costs. I sealed up the house tight by replacing all the weather stripping and sealing all the gaps I could find. We also put in solar shades to stop the direct sunlight heating. But it’s the thermostat setting that will really tell the tale. We are going for no more than 15 degrees cooler than the hottest outside temperature this summer.