Keeping your St. Petersburg, Florida home cool during the hottest days of summer can be quite challenging, especially if you want to keep your utility bills as low as possible.
As the sun beats down on your home, its heat can enter through the windows, sides, and roof of your home, impacting the temperature, reducing your comfort level, and making your St. Petersburg air conditioning unit work twice as hard to compensate for the additional heat. This can raise your cooling bills significantly and cause your air conditioner to wear down much faster than it should.
During summer, preventing heat build-up in your home and reducing utility bills is possible, but you’ll need to follow a few tips.
Reducing Heat Build-up
- Exterior Walls – When you walk outside during the hot days of summer, you most likely take steps to improve your comfort. One of these steps might be wearing light colored clothing. This is because you know that when you wear dark clothes, you absorb more heat. The same concept is true for a home. Darker paint can absorb up to 80 percent of the heat hitting the walls of the home. If you are planning on giving your home a new splash of color this summer, choose a light color that can deflect much of the heat.
- Roof – One-third of heat build-up in a home is caused by the roof, no matter what color it is. To prevent this from impacting your St. Petersburg air conditioning unit and your cooling bills, paint the roof with a reflective coating, such as white latex, and install a radiant barrier under the roof. This will reduce the amount of heat entering your home by about twenty-five percent.
- Windows – let in up to 40 percent of unwanted heat, making your St. Petersburg air conditioner work twice as hard to keep each room in the house cool during the hottest days of the year. Eliminate this problem by using reflective window coatings and sun control films to reduce glare and reflect heat. For best results, have a professional install these films so they work correctly and are an attractive addition to the home.
- Insulation – is essential in any home; it keeps the cold out during winter and the heat out during summer. While the main floors of the home may be well-insulated, pay special attention to the attic and ductwork. Adding proper insulation in these areas can help your cooling system be more efficient.
- Preventative Maintenance – Keep on top of the preventative maintenance your St. Petersburg air conditioning system needs. Have it checked by a professional regularly and make any necessary repairs as quickly as possible to ensure it is running as well as it should be during every month of the year you need it.
Is your home hotter than it should be? Use these tips to reduce heat build-up in the home, reduce utility costs, and improve the efficiency of your air conditioning system. With just a little effort your home can be cool and comfortable once again.
