Americans spend about half their annual energy budget on keeping their homes comfortable, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The weather has a big impact on each month’s energy bill. When it’s mild, bills stay low. During extremes, daily energy use climbs.
Temperature and Humidity
The two aspects of summer weather that increases cooling costs include the air temperature and the humidity level. Of the two, it’s faster and easier for your A/C to remove the heat from dry air than it is to cool off hot, humid air. Keeping the humidity out of your home in the summer does help lower its cooling costs and keeps you more comfortable. Besides being energy-intensive to remove, humidity also increases discomfort indoors when it exceeds 50 percent.
The HVAC industry deals with the extra burden that humidity puts on cooling systems by consulting a software resource that identifies cooling systems better suited for humid climates. When replacing your current system, ask the HVAC contractor to verify that the new one can handle the area’s summertime humidity.
What You Can Do
If you find that your energy consumption is higher than you’d like it to be, making improvements that help your home resist heat transfer and air infiltration will help lower your energy bill and increase your comfort. Consider:
Adding insulation to the attic. The DOE recommends at least 10 inches in the attic for the best thermal control.
Using the kitchen and bathroom fans. Be careful not to run the fans too long. Although they’re small, they’re capable of pulling a lot of conditioned air out of your home.
Sealing the air leaks in your home’s exterior to prevent air infiltration that could raise the indoor humidity. Use caulk, expanding foam and weatherstripping around windows and doors, as well as entry points for pipes and wires.
Using specialty products like chimney pillows to stop air leaks from fireplace chimneys, or self-sealing dryer vents.
If your monthly energy bill seems too high, contact Air Assurance for an HVAC inspection. We provide HVAC services for Broken Arrow homeowners for more than 30 years.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, call us at 918-217-8273.