Article: Dark colors attract heat. Painting your house (particularly your roof) white can naturally reduce how hot your house gets and how much you need to spend on air conditioning. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's heat Island group found that in warm weather houses with white roofs required 40% less energy for cooling than those with black roofs. Some appliances, like your oven, dishwasher, and dryer, will create heat that permeates throughout the house. Try to use these at night to reduce the need for air conditioning during the warmest part of the day. Alternatively, use a crockpot or microwave oven, which don't produce as much as heat as an oven. Grilling outside is also a good way to cook without heating up your home. Your air conditioning can be extremely inefficient if it is not working properly. You can call a repair company for a consultation or do a bit of due diligence on your own. Your AC can use too much power if it isn't appropriately sized for your home. Window units, for example, are only intended to cool a single room. Consider purchasing a new AC system. A new, high-efficiency system uses roughly half as much energy as 15-year-old system. You can personally check to see if an outside unit or heat pump is being blocked by anything. This can significantly increase your energy costs. A dirty AC filter can make it harder for your AC to pump air, increasing energy costs. Dirty filters can also cause your AC to break down prematurely, further increasing your expenses. You should try to change the filter once a month. Consider purchasing a permanent filter. These only need to be washed periodically. At a price of $20 to $40, you will recoup the cost of a permanent filter in about a year. If airflow is blocked in your home, your air conditioning system will work overtime to cool down the hard to reach places. Use a fan and verify that nothing is blocking the flow of air through your house. A fan doesn't exactly cool your home, but by pushing air around, it will distribute the heat better. Keep vents open. You might have forgotten that you closed a vent in your house. If so, your AC will keep on running to little or no effect. Keep doors open. If you do not, the air will not circulate properly. One good way to keep your home warm is to prevent the heat from coming in to begin with. This can involve some small home repairs, but often it just requires simple lifestyle changes. Check for leaks in your weather stripping around your doors and windows, as well as holes around pipes and the circumference of your garage floor. Use caulk to close up any holes. Your home can get especially hot if you allow the sun in. Close your blinds during the middle of the day to keep your home cool. Insulation in your attic floor should be approximately 12 inches thick. Do not put boxes on it or walk over it frequently, because this will compress the insulation and make it less effective. Raising the temperature in your home by 2C can reduce cooling costs by 5%. Wear lighter clothes (or none) to acclimate to a slightly higher temperature. Turn the AC down when you leave the house. Purchase an automatic thermostat that will turn off when your house cools down. The EPA estimates that a programmable thermostat can save you as much as $180 per year; such thermostats cost as little as $25. Keep heat-producing appliances like lights away from the thermostat; these can throw off its readings. Refrain from mopping, washing dishes, and washing clothes during the height of the day's heat. These tasks produce moisture, which will make the house feel humid and uncomfortable.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Paint your house light colors. Use appliances that produce heat during the night. Check your air conditioning system. Change your filter monthly. Distribute your cooling consistently. Insulate your home from the heat. Love the heat.