The building and its windows aren’t the only factors of your home affecting your indoor temperature. Furniture, appliances and other stuff you have in your house will also influence the temperature.
Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty you can do about it:
- Replace incandescent light bulbs with more efficient ones
Incandescent light bulbs could be accurately described as small heaters that produce light as a side effect. If you have a lot of them, they may add a thousand watts or more of heating to your home. Not exactly ideal in the summer heat.Replace them with energy efficient CFLs or LED bulbs to cut your lighting costs along with your cooling costs.
- Choose energy efficient appliances
If you’re buying a new appliance – or any electrical device, really – go for the most energy efficient ones. Not only will they cut your bills by using less electricity; they will also generate less waste heat. - Make sure appliances run efficiently
Appliances might waste energy by the bucketload if they’re not maintained and used properly. As an example, there are lots of ways to make a refrigerator use less energy (and generate less waste heat). - Insulate your hot water heater and hot water pipes
Most hot water heaters and the pipes connected to them will release waste heat. Insulating them will curb this problem and reduce the amount of energy your water heater uses. - Install a ceiling fan
Large ceiling fans are silent, draw very little power and circulate the air, making you feel cooler. Make sure you get one with reversible spin direction – run it counter-clockwise in the summer heat and clockwise in the winter cold. - Add a small attic fan
If your attic tends to get excessively hot, add a small fan to help ventilate it. Solar attic fans are ideal; they won’t cost you anything to operate and they’ll automatically be active when the Sun is up to its heating shenanigans.Keep the fan size small. An oversized fan might actually increase your cooling budget by drawing cooler, conditioned air from the rest of the house into the attic.
- Add thermal mass to your house’s interior
Consider adding interior features with high thermal mass to your house. Good candidates are shelves, tables, counters and decorative stuff made of dense materials like concrete, ceramics, bricks and marble.This extra thermal mass will absorb and store heat – especially if placed close to heat sources – during the day.
Ventilate well at night to get rid of the stored heat. A steady flow of cooler air will prepare the thermal mass objects for the next day’s heat.
This is the second to last post in my green home cooling series. In the last post, we’ll deal with how you can use landscaping and gardening to significantly improve the cooling performance of your home.
This post was tagged with: air conditioning, attic fan, ceiling fans, cooling, energy efficiency, energy efficient appliances, energy saving, heat buildup, home cooling, home improvement, house cooling, indoor temperature, saving energy, solar attic fans, summer heat, waste heat