Tips For Energy-Efficient Home-Cooling
Some great tips here to help you maintain your heating and/or colling system, and boost your energy efficiency. This is a repost from the
Sustainlane newsletter.
Did you know as much as half of your household energy use goes to heating and cooling? Want to know if your cooling system is efficient?
Here are a few things to look out for:
Your cooling system is making a racket. If so, your duct system could be improperly sized or there may be a problem with the indoor coil of your cooling equipment.
Your heat pump or air conditioner was installed before you had a Starbucks in your town. Wow. Time to upgrade to a newer model. Let the utility bill savings pay for your new appliance.
You check for leaks or loose hoses around your cooling unit and notice daffodils growing out of one of the tubes. Safely relocate daffodils and make sure to seal, insulate and clean your equipment.
Your blower components and coils are so filthy, you can't tell your blower apart from a pile of mulch. Clean and adjust blower components to provide proper system airflow over the indoor coil.
Your condensate drain in your in your central air conditioner, furnace and/or heat pump is plugged with Lord-knows-what. Um, go ahead and take care of that.
Your central air conditioner's refrigerant charge has lost that loving feeling. Adjust it if to meet manufacturer specifications. Improper refrigerant charge is a big problem.
Your moving parts aren't properly lubricated. Grease them up! Parts that lack lubrication cause friction in motors.
And, oh, yes, one more thing. Check to see if you've got an ENERGY STAR qualified central air conditioner. SEER, the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio, measures energy efficiency. Higher SEER equals more efficient.
