A cool home without air conditioning

We’re halfway through winter!  Whoop! When the weather starts finally heating up again, we’ll be using air conditioning to keep cool and the energy bills will jump up and bite us!

The rising energy bills that come with using air conditioning to keep cool when the weather warms up aren’t so cool, are they!? Yes, air conditioning does the trick, but if you throw some other methods into the mix, you’ll have a cool home, less money heading out the door and the environment will thank you.

Get cool without air conditioning

Becoming an expert on cooling your home without switching on the air conditioner can make a big difference in energy consumption and a welcome change to your energy bills. Here are some useful ideas to make it happen. First, you’ll need to work out what is making inside your home hotter than outside. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is there poor ventilation?
• Does the sunlight come streaming through one or more windows?
• Is your stove or oven putting out heat?

Knowing the answers means you can start doing something about it and bring down the temperature in your living spaces.

The New South Wales government advises that even raising the temperature on your air conditioning thermostat a few degrees will cut your energy bill by an average of $80, and that’s not all: it reduces your carbon footprint by up to 250kg less emissions. This small difference, just 1 or 2 degrees Celsius, makes a significant impact. It also means your air conditioner isn’t working so hard if you are using it. It’s clear that having your home 2 or 3 degrees cooler when you turn it on means even more savings.

You might like to do some research yourself, but to get you thinking, here are some handy tips for having a cool home without ‘air con’:

• Consider using the lower-cost ceiling fans; they can get the room cool quickly, especially once the sun has set.
• Get some awnings installed over the windows on the sunny side of your home.
• Install energy-saving lights that don’t emit so much heat, such as LEDs, and remember to turn them off during the day.
• Good cross ventilation will remove hot air from a room.
• Install an exhaust fan in the roof, a low-cost and effective way of getting hot air out of your ceiling cavity.
• The kitchen should be well-ventilated. Skylights allow heat to rise and escape. Get one with a remote control system for opening and closing it.

Another important factor is heat transference through windows, which studies show can be up to 40 per cent. Think seriously about installing double-glazed windows if you are building a new home. Just doing that can halve the heat transference. A retrofit alternative for your existing windows is applying uPVC double glazing.

Or, if you do need air conditioning, here are some alternative approaches:

Those of you living in an extremely hot climate probably need to use an air conditioner most of the time. This can mean your greatest expense each month is electricity. There are some other options to think about. If your climate is hot or temperate, an evaporative cooling air conditioner may be the best choice. They use much less energy than air conditioners that rely on refrigerants. However, if you live in a humid place in far north Queensland, they are not recommended because they work through water evaporation.

Weigh up the benefits of installing a modern, energy-efficient air conditioning system rather than keeping an existing, less efficient one that results in higher ongoing costs.

Consider having a qualified air conditioning expert install a zone air conditioning system. These ducted air conditioning systems let you decide which rooms need cooling, saving money otherwise wasted on cooling unused spaces.

Small changes can make a big difference. Changing to LED lights may seem like a small step, but that difference in temperature of just one or two degrees is significant. A few little changes like that can make for noticeable savings.

Energy-efficient approaches to keeping your home cool will help save your money and the earth.