Article DetailsFrugal Living: Surviving without Air Conditioning in the Summer? |
| Date Added: October 22, 2009 05:00:00 PM |
| Author: Jennifer McClelland |
| Category: Home: Home Improvement: Heating and Air Conditioning |
| I of late read an article about saving money during the summer by not turning on your air conditioner. While I will likely not even try this one, I wanted to share it with some of you guys to see if any of you are daring enough to try it.
The story from the article is that the author had not used the air conditioner in two summers and it was rather easy to adjust to the switch. The tips are to turn off the a/c (clearly), when you are spending time outdoors, you are doing so in the shade, do not even turn on the air conditioner in the car, and keep away from places that have air conditioners so that you will not throw off all the adjusting your body has done. The author says that your body will regulate to a certain level of heat and will do whatever it can to keep you cooled as long as you are drinking plenty of liquids and doing other things to keep yourself cool. Stay indoors during the warmest part of the day, but stay out in the shade is one of the tips I did not understand at first, then the article went on to say that there are ways to keep your house cooler in the day as long as certain measures are taken at night to help your house out the subsequent day. The author suggests getting up in the morning and closing all the windows and doors and to conceal them with a heavy shade or black out drape. Another tip to keeping the house cool is to use a lesser amount of electricity from indoor appliances as possible. I will say, in the summer I try to do laundry after dark and use a toaster oven to cook when I can to help keep the house cool. This author goes as far as to say do not dry your clothes in the dryer at all, cook outside on the grill, and make use of ceiling fans in a counter clockwise direction. At the finish of the day, open all the windows to allow in cooler air. I would have a crucial problem doing this. Where I live, there are too many different kinds of insects that can get into my house from the windows, even the windows with screens on them. The author of the piece claims that they were capable to save between $60 and $150 a month on their electric bill. Like I said, that is a huge decrease in the cost of electricity, but I do not personally think I could do it for an entire summer. Good luck to anyone that may want to try though! |
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