Frugal Summer Cooling

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

11 Jul 2007 11:19 AM

Now that the temperatures are getting hot, you might find that some of your money is burning up with all of that summer heat. This year, we have been able to reduce our summer cooling cost significantly. Last year, during the summer months, our electricity bill was more than $200. This year, so far we have managed to keep it under $86 a month. And, lest you think it has been a cool summer, let me tell you that we are already on our third heat wave.

So how did we do it? Here are some of the strategies.

One thing that helped us was a move to another home. This one has lots of trees that have helped shade the house. Of course, the house is much large and so requires more space to be cooled, so perhaps that balances things out. But the lesson here, of course is that landscaping can reduce some of your cooling costs.

As soon as the temperature starts to rise, we immediate close all of the windows. This might seem like a silly thing to do, but it works well to keep us cool. That is because by closing the windows, we keep the humidity out of the house. The lower the humidity, the more comfortable we will feel.

We also zone our house. We have one air conditioner placed in our living room. It is set at 75 and keeps the entire downstairs area quite comfortable. Any residual heat stays upstairs (heat rises). Since we usually don't spend much time upstairs during the day anyway, it would be a waste of energy to cool it down. In the evening, we shut off the air conditioner and use fans in the bedrooms.

Since we pretty much stay in one place when we sleep, the fans can blow air on us all night, keeping us cool and comfortable. It is amazing how well the fans work. We even sleep with light comforters.

How do you stay cool without spending a fortune?

Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.

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Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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jonesx6 (1606) 12 Jul 2007 12:53 PM

I usually will keep the blinds pulled on the side of the house that is getting the sun. It does help a bit. In the summer we generally have a $300 plus electric/gas bill. We try and only turn the A/C on when it is going to be very hot. Laura

Mary Ann Romans (26876) 14 Jul 2007 04:47 AM

Closing the curtains during the day is a great idea! We do just the opposite in winter, opening the curtains during the day to let the sun in and then closing them at night.

FrugalFanatic (20) 17 Jul 2007 09:24 AM

I do a few things to keep cooling costs down for the summer:

We keep the house closed up, but on cool mornings open the windows and run fans to cool off the interior, then button everything up before the heat arrives.

Vacuum under the fridge - the benefits are two-fold. 1st, the fridge is more efficient in general, meaning lower bills, but it will also need to "turn on" less frequently, reducing the amount of heat thrown into the room.

Turn off the lights! I've been training my young children to do this one because of the obvious electricity reason, but also to reduce the temp in the house. Many of our fixtures have multiple lightbulbs which create a lot of heat. We try to either turn them off altogether, switch to lower wattage bulbs, or pick a single-bulb fixture to turn on.

Mary Ann Romans (26876) 17 Jul 2007 11:54 AM

Great tips! I love the info about shutting off lights. Not only do you save on cooling costs, but lighting costs as well!