When Bob and I first moved down here, I felt so cheerful that my superb friend and I had pretty much negligible heating costs.
And that sort of spilled over into how Bob and I approached the a/c during the Summer.
For sure, the Summer heat & sweltering humidity are just a complete beast & very overwhelming at first. So I figured since I wasn’t paying truly anything in heating costs that I’d just lean into the cooling that Bob and I wanted in the Summer. That’s one way of looking at it but it soon became clear that this was a ridiculous way of cooling the house. After letting the a/c just run wild for the first three years, I decided to begin prepping the house in order to save on cooling costs. From there, it has been a strange little interest for me to keep saving just a bit more each year when it comes to lowering the a/c costs. This year is no different. Of course, I consistently start with basic Heating & Air Conditioning maintenance on the heat pump. And then stopping direct sun heating & sealing up the ducts truly tightly are the next essential steps. But after that, I’ve added something each year to save a little bit more. The largest saver so far was entirely adding the smart thermostat. The new Heating & Air Conditioning technology was such a substantial saver at nearly 17 percent over the year prior. Yet, I still like to add a bit to the a/c plans. So this year, I’m going to try & cook outside on the grill all Summer instead of heating up the house with using the stove or the oven. It’s either that or try hanging up the clothes instead of using the dryer.