Home Cooling & Heating Fact Sheet

These simple tips can slash your cooling costs by hundreds of dollars.

Have a yearly safety check and tune-up. Each season, a licensed heating and air conditioning technician should service your system. It's a small investment considering that you may spend as much as $500 on your home in just one season.

Your Real Change technician can handle all aspects of refrigerant sand leak repairs.

2. THE OUTSIDE UNIT

3. THE INSIDE UNIT

4. DUCT WORK

In addition, if a return duct in your attic is disconnected, you're drawing heated attic air - up to 140 degrees - into your system. This forces your system to work even harder, and may cause system failures.

To check for disconnected ductwork, examine the ducts in your basement, attic and crawl spaces.

Remember to keep safety in mind when climbing ladders or crawling in attics. Remove the vent grills in each room and make sure the ductwork is securely attached and sealed to the floor or wall. Rooms in your home that never seem to be conditioned properly may be a sign of disconnected ductwork.

Check for Crushed Ducts. Crushed ductwork is another reason some rooms never are comfortable. You can check your ductwork yourself by looking in the attic and crawl spaces, but you may want to have damaged sections replaced by a professional.

Seal Leaks. Leaky ductwork is a common problem. As a matter of fact, about 25% of every dollar spent on cooling can be lost through leaky ducts. Examine your ductwork for cracks, splits or bad connections. Turn on your system and feel for escaping air. Look for tell-tale black marks on the duct's insulation, especially around the joints. These are caused by dirt collecting around air leaks. Be sure to seal leaks carefully with mastic-type sealant, duct tape, which will not deteriorate over time.

If your furnace is in the garage, make sure that all possible leaks in the return-air path are sealed. Otherwise, unwanted fumes can be sucked into the house through those openings. Some furnaces sit on a raised platform in the garage, and extra care is needed to seal this type of return-air path.

Ask a Realchange Systems technician to check your system if you have any concerns.

5. THE THERMOSTAT

After tuning up your system and correcting any problems, the next step in cutting your cooling costs is to adopt some simple energy-Save habits. For instance, you can cut your system's operating costs or more simply by setting your thermostat. Find a thermostat setting your comfortable with and just leave it. Moving the thermostat up & down waste energy and make the equipment work harder.

There are many different electronic thermostats on the market that move the temp during unoccupied times to higher settings. Consult Realchange Systems for which thermostat is best for your system.

Shut it off when you're not home. Don't waste money by cooling your house while you're away at work or on vacation. If you keep shades and curtains drawn it usually won't take much energy to cool your house down when you return. However, if you turn the air conditioner off on the very hottest days and turn it on when you return from work, it may run constantly without cooling down your home very fast. One solution is to use a programmable thermostat to keep the temperature warmer while you're away, then automatically return the temperature back to the desired temperature an hour or so before you return.

Don't overcompensate with your thermostat setting - remember, thermostats are merely on-off switches. Setting the control to 60° won't cool your house any faster and it will waste additional energy if you forget and leave it running at the low setting. The best setting typically for winter or summertime is whatever your comfortable with and maintain that temperature without moving the thermostat up or down.

6. VENTILATION

7. Shading

Other Cool Ideas

What to look for in a new system If you're in the market for a new air conditioning system, you can save yourself hundreds of dollars in energy bills.

HERE'S HOW

Don't buy an oversized unit. A unit that's too big for your needs will waste energy and money. When replacing a unit, the existing size may be too large if you've improved your homes insulation  or upgrade your windows. Ask your Real Change technician for an exact heat-gain calculation that shows the proper size of unit to buy for your climate, house size, insulation level and number of windows. Do not count on rule-of-thumb estimates as they tend to be inaccurate, and may end up costing you money. Locate the outside unit properly. Keep the unit away from other objects. For example, don't enclose the unit with a deck or shrubbery - it needs room to breathe.

Make sure your home is properly weatherized. While proper ventilation that you control is necessary to allow enough fresh air into your home, you should eliminate all unnecessary leaks. Seal any cracks, holes or gaps, especially around plumbing and other penetrations through your ceilings, walls and floors. Caulk around windows and doors, and keep your fireplace damper closed when the fireplace is not in use. It's especially important that your ceilings, walls and floors should be adequately insulated. Insulation is rated by R-value - the higher the R-value, the more effective the insulation. At a minimum, your ceiling should be insulated to R-30, your walls to R-11 and your floors to R-19. Some types of attic insulation settle over time or may be unevenly distributed and need to be upgraded to achieve at least R-30.

• Don't jiggle  your thermostat.
• Turn your air conditioner off or to a warmer temperature when you aren't home for long periods
• Close curtains, draperies or shades.
• Use room fans to increase comfort.
• Avoid baking and other indoor heat-producing activities on hot days.
• Ventilate when it's cooler outside than inside.
• MONTHLY
• Change filters or clean permanent filters.
• Clear weeds, snow and other debris away from the outside condensing unit.

• Check system safety devices for proper functioning.
• Check system air flow.
• Inspect inside evaporator coils and drains.
• Clean and straighten the outside coil fins.
• Check for refrigerant leaks, and repair and recharge the system.
• Clean and oil the fan motors and service other components.
• Inspect ductwork and repair any damage and seal any leaks.
• Check the total system for proper and efficient operation.

Save money and energy by making sure each component of your system is running efficiently. Air conditioners work a lot like your refrigerator. A fan blows air across a cold evaporator coil and then sends this cool air into your house through the supply ducts. Warm air is drawn into the return ducts and is sent back into the system to be cooled. A refrigerant takes the heat to the outside unit, where it is dissipated to the outdoors.