Energy Saving Tips

Those of us fortunate enough to call ourselves Austinities know that with the impending summer comes more than we like to pay energy bills. In the light of keeping Austin Green, here are some tips to help keep your costs down so you can put your money to better summer time use... like tubing!

Cooling

• Fans blowing directly on you can make temperatures around you feel up to 4 degrees cooler.
• Set thermostat at 78 degrees or higher when the house is occupied and at 85 degrees when vacant.
• Keep debris, high grass and other obstacles away from your air conditioner's condenser so that airflow to the unit is not blocked.
• Clean your AC condenser/evaporator coils at the beginning of the season.
• Clean or replace filters at least once a month.
• Caulk and weather-strip around your windows and doors.
• Shade your outdoor AC unit.
• Plant trees to shade your south- and west-facing windows.

Insulation

• Find holes and patches in your house where air can invade and fill it up with plastics or weather strips so that your cooling system will not be overworked.
• Remember to keep all doors as well as windows closed at all times.

Lighting

• Turn off lights when leaving a room.
• Keep the dust off lampshades and light bulbs. It can reduce lighting levels as much as 50%.
• Change your bulbs to fluorescent. Fluorescent light bulbs use 70% less electricity than regular light bulbs, give off five times more light, emit 90% less heat and last 10 times longer.
  

Other Appliances

• Wash/dry full loads of clothes and use cold water as much as possible.
• Never put lamps, TV sets and other heat-generating gadget beneath a wall-mounted thermostat. Rising heat from these appliances may trigger your conditioning system to overwork