Have your energy costs risen with the South Florida summer temperatures? If they have, you should look into ways you can save energy. While blasting the air conditioning might seem like a good idea on a 95-degree day, you should consider your energy bills and your environmental impact first. Here are several tips for staying cool in the Florida heat while reducing your energy costs:

Use Preventive Maintenance

Having your heating and air conditioning system serviced regularly is called preventive maintenance. Waiting until your system suffers a major breakdown to have it serviced is called reactive maintenance. Engaging in preventative maintenance will keep your system working throughout the summer and in the long run. This type of maintenance involves checking on and fixing small problems before they become large ones. That includes:

• Changing your air filters every month, or at least at the beginning of every season. This will improve the air quality in your home and prevent dust and allergens from causing health and breathing problems for you and your family.
• Having the coils and fans professionally cleaned. This will improve your system’s energy efficiency.
• Sealing the ducts in your home. This prevents air leaks that decrease your system’s efficiency.

While you can perform some of these tasks yourself, such as changing out the air filters, some require professional residential HVAC services, like the ones we offer. Hiring an HVAC services company to inspect and service your system regularly means your system will be serviced safely by a licensed technician. While you will have to spend money to hire these professional services, you will ultimately save money in the long run because you won’t have to hire professionals for many larger, more expensive repairs.

Keep the Air Moving

Instead of blasting your central air conditioner at its highest level, you can use it at a more moderate level and use ceiling fans to keep the air moving. To do this, you should keep doors open between rooms in your home. This will help the cool air travel freely between rooms, whereas closed doors would keep the air trapped in specific rooms.

Install a Programmable Thermostat

Using a programmable thermostat, such as Sensi, gives you greater control over your energy consumption. You can use a zoned cooling system, which is a room-by-room thermostat that comes with one multi-zone controller. With this system, you can set different rooms to different temperatures. So you can set an empty bedroom zone to a higher temperature, such as 80 degrees, while you can set the fully occupied living room zone to 73 degrees.

Use Window Treatments

While this tip doesn’t directly involve your HVAC system, it’s an additional way to keep your home cool. Having your windows treated with solar film will block out the brightest rays during summer and help keep your home cool before you even have to touch the thermostat. You can also put up curtains, drapes, blinds, or thermal-backed shades and keep them closed during the hottest periods of the day.

South Florida Residential HVAC Services

If you are interested in using preventive HVAC maintenance to help keep your house cool this summer, contact us today. We can fix small HVAC problems before they grow larger, but we also offer residential and commercial HVAC emergency services in case a major breakdown does occur.