I’m Willing to Work a Bit for HVAC Energy Savings
Man, it takes just about every little thing to make the monthly budget stretch to accommodate my family’s needs.
We have to do everything we can do in order to make our income go as far as it can go.
Our collective income just really hasn’t risen with the same regularity as the bills have risen. It just costs more and more every year just to provide for my family and their basic needs. So, like many of us out there, I have to do everything possible to squeeze the household budget. We live in an area where the HVAC cooling system runs nearly 6 months of the year. It’s just a fact of life. However, the more I looked at what we were spending a month for HVAC, the more I thought we could save. So, HVAC savings became a new target for shaving dollars off the bill. My wife and I spent a Saturday with a pair of caulk guns and sealed every single crack or gap we could find in our home. I even went to the attic and resealed the entire perimeter. Then, we purchased a smart thermostat. I knew that we were leaving a ton of money on the table by not managing the thermostat more closely. There would be no more cranking the air conditioning lower just because. We also began setting the thermostat a bit higher than we had. Instead, we broke out some fans to help us be more comfortable. Fans consume less than 1/10 the amount of kilowatt hours that the HVAC unit does. Finally, we started closing curtains to prevent direct sun heating. We are hoping to realize a close to 20 percent energy savings through our efforts.