Once again, the HVAC bill has its summer bloat going on.
That bloat is sucking my wallet dry.
Writing the utility check in the summer is akin to paying for a very fancy vacation. The rising utility costs are just astounding. I remember rolling my eyes at my dad when he would yell at us about leaving a door ajar while the HVAC was running. Now, I sure understand where he was coming from. I do the very same thing to my kids. This year I decided I wasn’t simply going to sit around and watch the HVAC eat up such a chunk of our household budget. Instead, I did a quick bit of research and got proactive about saving some money. The HVAC unit is only a few years old but, I could have gone a little higher on the SEER number. However, with a few changes, I was still able to make the HVAC unit far more efficient. First, I attacked the direct sun heating. Where we live, the summer is brutal hot and the sun is a constant. I love the sun and where I live but, I had to do more about how direct sunlight was robbing me. We put up special solar drapes to cut out nearly all the heating due to direct sun exposure. Then, we made sure that we were keeping as much of the HVAC treated air in the house as possible. This didn’t take too much. In fact, I was able to seal all the cracks and gaps around our home in a weekend. But, the biggest change was one that I knew would be the most difficult. I decided that our house temperature needed to go up as the outside temps rose.