Home Improvement News Bureau

Hot Tips For A Cool Summer

MONEY PIT NEWSBUREAU – June 1, 2004:  A cool house is a welcome escape from summer heat.  But with this year's high energy costs, trying to keep your home comfortable is enough to make you hot under the collar. 

Home improvement experts Tom Kraeutler and Debby Robinson, hosts of The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show, say it doesn't have to be this way.  "Whether your home has a complete central air conditioning system or just a window fan, a few tricks of the trade can help you cool off without spending a fortune, " said Kraeutler.

Robinson and Kraeutler, whose national show is broadcast to more than 100 radio stations each weekend, offered these tips to keep comfortable through the hottest months of the year.

LANDSCAPING - Carefully positioned trees can save up to 25 percent of a household's energy consumption for heating and cooling.  On average, a well-designed landscape provides enough energy savings to return your initial investment in less than eight years.

A well-planned landscape can reduce an unshaded home's summer air-conditioning costs by 15 percent to 50 percent. One Pennsylvania study reported air-conditioning savings of as much as 75 percent for small mobile homes.

WINDOWS & DOORS are many ways to make a new or existing home more energy efficient, and one of the most effective is often overlooked: installing better-performing windows.  Roughly 40 percent of the unwanted heat that builds up in your home comes in through windows. Consider replacing single-pane windows with double-pane windows with high-performance glass. 

"Good windows make a huge difference in preventing heat from entering your home,  said Kraeutler.  "For example, the Andersen 400 Series windows have high-performance insulated glass, which is, on average, 41 percent more energy efficient in summer and 35 percent more energy efficient in winter than standard dual-pane glass."

According to Kraeutler, that same kind of savings can be realized by replacing entry and patio doors.  “Therma-Tru, for example, has a line of fiberglass entry and patio doors that are more energy efficient and durable than wood, but still deliver beauty and performancel,” he said.  For more information on Thermatru, go to www.thermatru.com.

DEHUMIDIFIER - As the saying goes, it's not the heat, it's the humidity.  Lowering that humidity can make you a lot more comfortable.  One way to do that is by installing a whole house humidifier. 

"Aprilaire makes a unit that can be installed directly into your heating and air conditioning system," said Robinson. "The advantage is that the unit can remove as much as 90 pints of water a day from your house and keep you cool and comfortable without having to inefficiently overcool the space through the use of an air conditioner."  More information on the Aprilaire unit is available at Aprilaire.com

CENTRAL AIR SYSTEMS - If you're lucky enough to have a central air conditioning system, have it professionally serviced at least once per season to avoid wasting loads of electricity.

"Working properly, the system should produce a temperature ‘differential’ of 15 to 20 degrees between return and supply air. This means that if the air being drawn into the system is 75 degrees, the air coming out should be at least 60 degrees. If not, your air conditioner is probably low on refrigerant and has to run longer to do the same job. And that expense can really add up," said Kraeutler.

Also, be sure to leave your storm windows down when using a central air conditioning system.  Hot air that leaks into your house in the summer can increase cooling costs just like cold air leaks do in the winter.

WINDOW AIR CONDITONERS - Unlike central systems, window air conditioners don't need to be serviced each year. The installation, however, can make a big difference in how well the unit runs and how long it lasts.  If you have a choice of windows, install the unit on the shadiest side of the house.  Avoiding direct sun allows the unit to work cooler, which means it won't need to run as long to do its job.

ROOM FANS - Have you ever wondered just why you feel cooler when standing in front of a fan even though the air temperature doesn't actually get colder? The reason is a phenomenon called "evaporative cooling".  Moving air causes moisture on your skin to evaporate.  This evaporative process cools your skin so you feel more comfortable. To maximize this effect, position room fans for air circulation. If you're using a window fan, open another window across the room to provide good cross ventilation.

CEILING FANS - Large and lazy ceiling mounted paddles fans may give you a feeling of sitting next to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. But these popular fans are costly to run and an inefficient way to cool your home.  If you do have ceiling fans, take advantage of their one energy efficient feature - reversible motors. By controlling the direction of the blades, you can use the fan to "pull" cold air up in the summer and "push" warm air down in the winter.

For more information on curbing cooling costs, contact the US Department of Energy at 1-800-DOE-EREC.  You can request a copy of their free booklet offering over 100 energy saving tips called "Energy Savers: Tips on Saving Energy and Money at Home".

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