Comments on: How To Stay Efficiently Cool This Summer

By: Bob Plumbing

Bob Plumbing — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:59:30 +0000

You don’t really realize how easy it is to save money on the simplest things to remember. Thanks for these great tips!

By: Pat Williams

Pat Williams — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:30:19 +0000

I remember my grandmother hanging the wet sheets in the windows (not soaking wet but damp). She would also use them to block off certain areas of the house to keep the living space cooler. I wanted to know how to save some money on my energy bill so I went online to http://www.lauryheating.com. They have a whole page on money-saving ideas to keep your heating/ac bills under control.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 31 May 2010 18:03:49 +0000

@joy:

Get a whole house fan from airscape. Also, install pull-down shades in doorways so that you can put a box-fan in the doorway and block the rest of the space to create more pull. Open windows at night, and use all the fans to get as much cold air as possible through the house ALL NIGHT, and then close all the windows before it starts to get hot in the early morning. Also, use awnings or shade-trees or whatever you can to shade the part of the house that gets the most sun.

By: joy

joy — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:32:33 +0000

I have a question, I live in phx az so cooling the is very important to us. It is about a 1600 sq ft home 3 bedrooms the living area of the home stay pretty cool and the master bedroom as well, the problem is the 2 smaller bedrooms facing the north stay really hot. What can we do to keep those rooms cooler?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 13 May 2010 12:37:58 +0000

The most efficient whole-house option is a modern, self-insulating, efficient whole-house fan from these folks: http://airscapefans.com/

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:20:10 +0000

How about covering your windows with cheap alum. & foams boards with you have no larges to shade you.

I also wear a wet headband or cap.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:21:08 +0000

Andy: I don’t run central A/C except when it’s close to 100 degrees outside but I think it depends on your house and your furnace. My furnace fan uses a fair amount of power and keeping it on all the time makes the compressor run more when it’s very hot (because it circulates the warmer air from the attic into the rest of the house). So, in my house, running the fan all the time uses more power (and furnace filters). The only way I think it could save energy is if you had a very very cold basement (with air returns) that stayed cold on the hottest days and a new, efficient furnace fan. Even then, I’m not sure.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 05:06:28 +0000

One point about the portable A/C. I have the exact portable A/C unit in the pic, and it does have a high EER rating. I had to buy that because my attic windows were too small for any window unit. Now that my dog can’t go upstairs, I’m downstairs. I bought a small Kenmore window A/C and use that instead of the portable one. Even though it has a lower EER (10.2), it uses much less power to cool the same room. I think this is because: 1-It has a lower BTU and therefore uses less watts and 2-It is more efficient because it does not pull warm air in from other rooms. In the same room, the portable’s compressor would run almost all night and use 7kw/hrs per night while the window unit runs about half the time and uses about 3.5 kw/hrs per night. If you don’t need a portable, a properly sized window unit seems to be more efficient.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:51:12 +0000

I have a question: Is keeping the A/C unit fan on all the time ideal, verses having unit fan on Auto? Will keeping fan on keep my home cooler, thus saving energy or will the constent fan use more energy?

By: Dean

Dean — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:51:18 +0000

Delighted to see you included shade trees and lawn vegetation in your article. My home was shaded by a large tree on the west until two years ago, when it died; the difference is striking. I have trees growing to replace it; many quality trees like pinoaks grow quite quickly. A friend’s home was shaded by a large sycamore in my childhood and they never had air conditioning and only a few days a year was uncomfortable.
Trees also provide huge benefit for noise and air pollution and reducing the wind in the winter.