No matter the type of weather that you have outside most people are either using their heater or air conditioner to heat or cool their home to a temperature that is comfortable for their family. When you are using your HVAC system to heat or cool the home you are using energy that you have to pay for on your electric or gas bill. People are always trying to use other methods to help control the HVAC unit and save more energy. Some of the things that you might be trying may not be saving energy and on the contrary be wasting even more.
Ambient Heating and Air Conditioning outlines a few myths about heating and cooling that you might be trying to help save you energy.
Do Ceiling Fans Cool a Room
This is a MYTH! When you are using a fan in a room it is only doing good to a person that is sitting in its path. The air is only being circulated and in no way being cooled at all. The fan is simply moving the air around at a faster pace than normal and when you sit in its path it can make your own body feel cooler by removing heat from your skin. When you leave the room that has a fan running and you leave it on you are now just wasting energy and doing nothing to cool the room.
Close A/C Vents in Unused Rooms
The registers in your home all have a small lever on it that allows you to control the amount of air that gets into that particular room itself. Some people are under the impression that you can close off the vent to rooms that are not being used and that will send more air to other rooms and cool them faster. This is a MYTH! When you close off a vent some think that the unit will have to work less and that will save you energy. The opposite is true and the unit will work just as hard if not harder to re-route the air through the unit. A better option is to talk to a HVAC contractor about a system that can be installed to adding a zoning system.
Does Turning Down the Thermostat Save Money?
If you come home on an unusually hot day and want to cool your home down fast some people think that the lower you set the temperature that faster it will cool down. This is a MYTH! The unit is set up to work at the same pace no matter how low the temperature is set to. It is best to set it to a temperature that you know is comfortable while you wait for the home to cool down. If you set it too low the unit will just run for a longer amount of time and waste more energy.
