The most dreadful thing happened recently. Our air conditioner stopped blowing cold air. The summer months of lower Alabama are not kind to those without air conditioning and my wife has let me know exactly how she feels about it. So while waiting for a technician to come out and fix things for us, I implemented a few energy saving tips in the meantime all with a metaphorical shotgun to my back.
Shut out the Sun
It seems pretty obvious you don’t want the sun inside your home if you are trying to keep it cold. The easiest way to do this is to shut your blinds. You can keep them open a bit as long as you slant them outwards, not inwards.
You can also double up on this with black out curtains. For us just the closed blinds was not enough, so we put black out curtains up on all the worst offending windows. It was a bit of a trade off since we now needed to use more lighting, but the lower load on the air conditioner more than pays for the difference.
Open your Windows
This goes for hot and cold weather. You can open a window or two overnight to let in the cold air if your home is hotter than outside, plus the air circulation can keep your bedroom feeling even cooler. Once the sun comes out and the outside begins to heat up, close everything up. This way we are taking advantage of the natural differences in temperature, all for free.
Now if it is cold outside, you want to turn your house into a greenhouse. If a window is facing the sun, open the curtains and blinds up to let as much sun in as possible. If a window is not facing the sun, leave it closed so there is less room for heat dissipation. More heat will enter through the glass than can bounce back out, but only if the sun is directly facing it.
If the air outside is actually hotter than indoors, you can open the window panes as well. If you live in an area where you sweat during the day and freeze at night like me, this is all too possible.
Optimize your System
Assuming your air conditioner is properly working, there are several steps you can take to dramatically improve your energy costs all without any effort aside from initial set up.
First thing is first, if you do not have a programmable thermostat, buy one. You do not need one of those fancy $200 smart thermostats, as all that will do is let you micromanage your temperature and that is not what we are after! Low effort, high reward is the name of the game.
If you have a very consistent schedule, set your temperature to 5-10 degrees further than where you normally keep it while your family is away, and switch it back half an hour before you return. If your schedule is a bit erratic(?) then you will need to either adapt or find a time you are consistently away, but ideally you will use less air conditioning during the day and more in the evening.
If you live somewhere with a Time-of-Day billing system, this can also move your electricity usage out of high demand times and further decrease your costs. You will not even notice the difference, but your electricity bill will!
Maintain your Air Conditioner Monthly
Proper maintenance of your system can go a long way towards not only efficiency but also the life of your equipment.
Changing your air filters every one to three months depending on your inside air quality is certainly the easiest place for maintenance. I have plenty of fluffy pets so our filter has a nasty habit of becoming absolutely filthy with debris almost as soon as we replace it, so we change ours more frequently than most people find necessary. If you use a stronger filter you will also need to replace more frequently as you will collect more with it. The last thing you need is a system working harder than necessary because the filter is blocking air flow.
One maintenance step I have personally been neglecting until our technician told me is to run a cup of diluted bleach in the drain line once a month when we change our air filter. A clogged drain line prevents your air conditioner from reducing humidity, and as you can imagine you do not want excess humidity in your home. Not only will you have water puddling up everywhere, excess moisture can actually cause discoloration in your walls and carpet.
Another step we have incorporated into our routine is when we do yardwork, we make sure to check around our outside unit a bit more thoroughly and pull away any excessive debris. The outside unit relies on free air flow to stay efficient, so plants, leaves, dirt, and who knows what else only serve to reduce your efficiency. Hopefully you like the way your unit looks, because the most efficient place for it is standing alone and by itself, almost like it is a centerpiece in your yard. No fencing around it, no tree shading it, but completely left alone and by itself.
Maintain your Air Conditioner Yearly
While the above gets you 80% of the way there, your unit would appreciate just a little more attention. These steps are only slightly more involved and should not require any outside help unless you are uncomfortable messing with your equipment.
The first step, as you can imagine, would be to shut the power to your unit off. Not only would I shut it down from your thermostat, but typically there is a shutoff nearby your outside unit in a little box.
Pull the top off of your outside unit, being careful not to put strain on the electrical wiring. You might be able to prop up the top against the side instead of having a second set of hands holding it like my wife and I did.
Rinse the coil fins from the inside with water to push the dirt and debris from in between them. This goes back to the airflow issue. While you are in there, if you see anything that doesn’t belong, pull it out. If you mow too closely you will likely see plenty of old grass clippings inside your unit. You can also likely use a vacuum, but I have not personally tried it yet. Whatever you do, just be careful not to bend the coil fins.
Check the fan motor for lubrication ports, and if your unit is old enough check the bottom of the unit for a belt-driven compressor that likely has lubrication ports. You will specifically need electric motor oil for these, not penetrating or all purpose as they likely will do harm to your unit. Five drops in each port will do the trick. (Un)fortunately since we had to buy a new air conditioning system recently, we did not need to do this step, but if your system is a little older then it would be a good idea.
If you do not own a fin comb, it is a good idea to get one. These little tools allow you to fix any bent coil fins into close to original condition. It won’t be perfect but it sure beats being completely bent out of shape. Do this simultaneously with the above step. I attempted to use a butter knife instead and will admit it did not work as well as I had hoped; a fin comb is much preferable.
It goes without saying, if you see anything leaking or notice something that does not look quite right, you likely should hire a professional to check it out for you. I am all for doing things ourselves, but I personally will not fool with an air conditioning system further than what I listed above.
Fix the Leaks
In a perfect world, all the nice conditioned air will stay inside and no outside air will get in. However we do not live in a perfect world.
Check the weather stripping on all your exterior doors (and windows) once or twice a year. Check for any rips, tears, or loose pieces and replace anything you find wrong. This will not only keep the rain out, it keeps air from leaking out as well as bugs from getting in!
You can take this one step further and either hire a company to do an energy audit, or buy/rent a thermal scanner and do it yourself. If you have a few friends or family members interested, then buying one might be more worthwhile. Shut off your air conditioning and close all windows and doors. Take a look around your home and see if anything looks abnormal. The typical places where potential energy loss occurs is attics, basements, windows, doors, lights and fan fixtures, electrical and plumbing points of entry, and chimneys, but if anything else looks off then focus on that area as well. If the thermal camera can detect minute temperature differences, you can actually spot water leaks this way as well.
New Equipment
Sadly, nothing lasts forever. We ended up having to buy a new system entirely. As it turns out ours was about 17 years old so we certainly got our time out of it. If you do not currently have a sizeable emergency savings and your roof or air conditioning system is getting up there in age, I would get on it. These repairs are not cheap, as worthwhile as they are.
We upgraded from a 13 to a 16 SEER, which will ideally save us at least 18.75% on our heating and cooling. To do that math, you just take the old SEER and divide by the new one, or 13/16 = 81.25%. I say “at least,” because quite frankly I am sure there were other inefficiencies in our system we did not know about.
As of the time of this writing, there is actually a (small) tax break for buying a 16 SEER system or better worth up to $300. That should not be the only reason for upgrading, but it does help ease the sticker shock.
There are plenty of calculators out there to help you determine if a higher SEER unit will save you money over time. The price of a 14 versus 16 for us was too close not to go ahead and move up, but it depends entirely on where you live. Florida will have a much quicker return on investment than Tennessee, as it tends to be much hotter and more humid in Florida.
As you can see, there are numerous ways you can lower your heating and cooling bills, you just need to take the initiative to put these steps in place for your household. Please let me know if I missed anything below, or let me know if this has helped you!
