Southern Sierran
Cheap Ways to Keep Your Home Cooler (and Help Save the Planet)

By Jim Stewart

The largest home energy consumption in Southern California is cooling. While I’m not suggesting you pull the plug, especially not in heat waves such as this summers, there are many ways to cut down on your energy consumption and still keep cool. The following tips will also save you money and reduce your impact on global warming. Many of these tips are from the The Department of Energy’s Energy Star program, which can be found online at http://www.energystar.gov/.

Cool efficiently

• Use the cooler air at night to cool your house. As soon as the outside temperature drops lower than inside, open all your windows, turn on a window fan to exhaust the hot air and bring in cooler air from other windows. Then as soon as the temperature rises outside in the morning, close all windows to retain the coolness.
• Close window shades, drapes, or blinds to block any incoming sunlight.
• Use portable or ceiling fans when possible instead of operating your air conditioner. Even mild air movement of 1 mph can make you feel three or four degrees cooler.
• Use a fan with your window air conditioner to spread the cool air through your home.
• Use an ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat with your air conditioner to automatically increase the setting at night or when no one is home.
• When you come home and the house is hot, do not turn the thermostat below what is comfortable (train yourself to enjoy 80º). Turning the thermostat lower won’t reduce the time to cool the house, but it will cost you a lot of money, especially if you forget to move it back to 80º.
• Don’t place lamps or TVs near your air conditioning thermostat. The heat from these appliances will cause the air conditioner to run longer.
• Consider installing a whole house fan or evaporative cooler (a “swamp cooler”).
• Add insulation in the floor of your attic, and house walls if possible - the thicker the better to keep your house comfortable.
• Install white window shades, drapes, or blinds to reflect heat away from the house.
• Install awnings on south-facing windows. Because of the lower angle of the sun, some trees, a trellis, or a fence can help shade west-facing windows.
• Apply sun-control or other reflective films on south-facing windows.
• Check your air conditioner’s efficiency. Use a household thermometer to measure the temperature of the cool air coming out and the temperature of the return air at the return-air grill. (Keep the thermometer in place for five minutes to get a steady temperature.) The difference should be from 14 to 20 degrees. Less than 14º could mean low refrigerant or leaks. A unit cooling more than 20 degrees could have a severe blockage.
• Use a whole-house or attic fan, especially if you live in a multi-story home where the upper floor stays uncomfortably warm. Attics trap fierce amounts of heat and can rise to 150º. A well-placed and -sized whole-house fan pulls air through open windows on the bottom floors and exhausts it through the roof, lowering the inside temperature and reducing energy use by as much as third compared with an air conditioner. (Or you can just put a small, inexpensive fan in one end of the attic to pull air in the other end during the heat of the day.)
• When buying new heating and cooling equipment like a central a/c unit, proper sizing and quality installation are critical to your home’s energy efficiency and comfort. Remember: Bigger doesn’t always mean better. If the air conditioner is too large for your home, you will not only increase your energy costs, you’ll be less comfortable in your home.
• The outdoor porch or post lamp is one of the highest used light fixtures in a home. Many compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) will fit easily into existing porch lights. Or install an ENERGY STAR qualified outdoor fixture that saves energy through CFL technology, a motion sensor and/or a photocell that turns the light on only when someone is present, or on at night and off in the morning.
• Use well-insulated windows, doors, and skylights to keep your home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Landscape for a cooler house
• Plant trees or shrubs to shade air conditioning units, but not block the airflow. An AC unit operating in the shade uses less electricity.
• Grown on trellises, vines such as ivy or grapevines can shade windows or the whole side of a house.
• Avoid landscaping with lots of unshaded rock, cement, or asphalt on the south or west sides as they increase the temperature around the house and radiate heat after the sun has set.
• Deciduous trees planted on the south and west sides will keep your house cool in the summer. Just three trees, properly placed around a house, can save between $100 and $250 annually in cooling and heating costs. Daytime air temperatures can be 3 degrees to 6 degrees cooler in tree-shaded neighborhoods. Reduce the heat you produce
• Replace all incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents.
• Plug home electronics, such as TVs, VCRs, computers, printers, cell phone chargers, etc. into power strips and ALWAYS turn power strips OFF when equipment is not in use. (Remember, an AC adapter plugged in is ALWAYS drawing power, heating your house, and costing you money. In the average home, 40% of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off.)
• Dry dishes in a drying rack instead of using your dishwasher’s drying heat cycle.
• Don’t use your oven, use your stovetop, or grill outside.
• Turn off your computer and monitor when not in use. Dry clothes on a clothesline, not in a dryer, whenever possible.
• Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater; 115° is comfortable for most uses.
• Take showers instead of baths to reduce hot water use.
• Wash only full loads of dishes and clothes.
• Caulking and weather-stripping will keep cool air in during the summer. See the ENERGY STAR website for excellent brochures on how to find and patch leaks.
• If you see holes or separated joints in your ducts, hire a professional to repair them.
• Add insulation around air conditioning ducts when they are located in unconditioned spaces such as attics, crawl spaces, and garages; do the same for whole-house fans where they open to the exterior or to the attic. Use duct insulation material rated at least R-6.
• Check to see that your fireplace damper is tightly closed. If there is any remaining air flow, put an air block in whenever it is not in use, or install tight glass doors across the entire front.
• Use the Home Energy Yardstick at the Energy Star website to compare with averages. The typical household spends $1,900 a year on energy bills. With these tips, you can save up to 30% or more than $600 per year.

Take advantage of tax credits The Energy Policy Act of 2005 allows consumers to receive a federal TAX CREDIT up to $500 for making energy efficient improvements on their home, including installing ENERGY STAR qualified windows, skylights, new heating and cooling systems, reflective roofs, and more. In addition, tax credits up to $2,000 are available for solar hot water heating, photovoltaics, or fuel cells. Visit http://www.energystar.gov/ for complete details. (Remember that a tax credit is money directly in your pocket; it is much better than a tax deduction.)

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