Green-thumbed folk always find themselves improving and greening their households with how they maintain their lawns. Some will keep compost piles, raise their own food in gardens, and make water preservation efforts when keeping their lawns healthy. However, consider the additional benefit of how your hard work outside can affect energy efficiency indoors. In fact, it’s possible in milder regions to create a comfortable indoor climate without much air conditioning at all with good practices outdoors – and here’s how:
Sun mitigation
Naturally, we seek out shade when it is hot outside. Providing such shade for the entrances to your home can reduce the inside temperature by several degrees alone. When landscaping, consider how you can maintain hedges and trees to create shade over your windows during peak hours of the day. This aspect of design, known as sun mitigation, can be an extremely cost-efficient way of reducing your energy bills monthly.
To make the benefit even more pronounced, using inexpensive window films and appropriately glazed panes can make a world of difference on how much sunlight influences your home’s inside temperature. Look into your home’s orientation, as well, since the northern hemisphere suffers a phenomenon known as southern exposure. Taking care to mitigate light from southern windows is a key strategy in keeping your home cool.
Ventilation
No air conditioner compares with the energy efficiency and greenness of nature’s very own air, making ventilation one of the greatest tools you can use in cooling down your home. Knowing how to properly ventilate your home can reduce the temperature to a comfortable degree without requiring an HVAC system, improve your air quality, and eliminate harmful substances in the environment like gasses, mold, and microorganisms.
Know when the coolest hours are for pulling in some fresh air, which usually lie between early mornings and late evenings. Using a fan to pull in and circulate air from outside can cool your home at a fraction of the cost of air conditioning. Also consider using ceiling fans to help your home’s ventilation needs. Just be wary of opening any windows or doors when your system is on, or else you’ll put enormous strain and waste on your system.
This is a guest post by Jason Wall from Griffith Energy Services. He is an HVAC technician with more than 23 years of experience throughout the United States.