These days, with the economy what is and the state of the environment at an all-time red alert –winters and storms being more destructive and summers breaking international temperature records summer after summer— more consumers are looking for ways to hatch a plan to save money on their energy bill, and generally use less energy to chip away at lowering their carbon footprint.
Alternative energy sources are not available to everyone, however if you have a reverse cycle air conditioner and would like to save some money (and energy) on your next invoice, keep reading to read about some clever energy-saving hacks!
What is a “Reverse-Cycle” Air Conditioner?
Before you can understand what a “reverse cycle” is, let’s take a look at a regular air conditioner. Your average air conditioner contains a heat pump that takes heat from inside your home and moves it outside. The system works from coil to coil; a cooling coil inside, a heat
Energy Saving Hacks and Trends for 2016
Here is our round up of the latest energy-saving hacks and trends for the year 2016. If you have any helpful energy-saving tips, we know our readers would love to hear from you in the comments –and we would, too!
1. Link Your Reverse-Cycle Air Conditioners Together with a Thermostat
In order to ensure that your home is the same temperature throughout, consider linking your reverse-cycle air conditioners together with a thermostat. Maintaining an even temperature will reduce drafts in the winter and prevent heat from spreading during the summer months.
Maintaining a common temperature throughout your home will prevent individual units from working harder, and reduce unnecessary costs overall. However, turn off units in empty rooms to avoid heating an unused space!
2. Winterise Your Air Conditioner(s)
If you’ve got any type of air conditioning unit with an external unit out in the cold during winter, it’s imperative that you winterise it and keep it properly maintained.
Unmaintained air conditioning units are responsible for larger energy utility bills, as they tend to work less efficiently and use more power to operate.
3. Winterise Your Home
You’re leaving a whole lot of money on the table if you purchase a top-of-the-line energy saving reverse cycle air conditioner only to have a drafty home. If you had to choose between an energy efficient unit and getting your drafts under control –we’d say eliminate those drafts!
An efficient heating solution of any kind is pointless if you’re just heating the outdoors with it.
4. Contemplate Your Airflow
Heat rises, right? So that means cool air sinks to the floor. Wherever your reverse-cycle air conditioner is, ensure that its airflow moves appropriately for the season; send heat downwards and cool air upwards!
5. The Power of Solar
We’re not referring to solar energy as in solar panels when we make this suggestion; instead we mean that you should put the sun to work; black curtain panels facing the outside heat up more than white curtain panels, and you can always leave them open when the sun is beating down through a window during a cold winter day. Provided you don’t have draft windows, of course.
In Conclusion
At the end of the day, a reverse-cycle air conditioner is already going to save you money over electric heat in the winter. Adding these hacks on top of that savings is money in the bank.
Anything to add? Let us know in the comments!