As Springtime Approaches
Now that spring is approaching and summer is hot on its heals. The shops will be filling up with air-conditioning units and fans of varying sizes. These of course use fuel, take up room and cost money. While the hot weather is un-bearable to some, others enjoy basking in the warmth. If you can’t stand the heat, there are steps to take to make the internal environment of a house more bearable.
There are a few terms, which need clarifying, strictly speaking, air conditioning means to either heat or cool the air using heating and cooling systems; most of the units; called air-conditioning; available, cool air. This helps to clarify the objectives of an EPC, which measures the energy consumption used to condition a building.
To start making sure that your house doesn’t get too warm, there are a few basic things to keep in mind. The first thing is to check your heating system timers, or if you don’t have a programmer, you keep aware of the temperature and adjust your heating controls accordingly. Storage heaters of course present the biggest problem, since they need charging up before hand. If your heating is on and it’s going to be a warm day, you will be working against yourself.
The cheapest way to keep a house cool is to use the windows and create a draft through the house. It may be obvious, however, if you start planning now you can have a strategy in place to maintain a comfortable temperature in the house. Leaving the windows open too long, will over cool the house at this time of the year, this will then lead to switching the heating on when it may have been possible to have left it off.
Because heat rises, it is better to have open windows downstairs to draw in cool air, and a window open upstairs to let out the hot air. To make sure that there is a clear path, check that there are no doors closed or other blockages in between stifling the flow of air. If you are concerned about insects getting in the house, there are nets are available for placing over the window opening to stop this from happening.
If you do decide to buy an air-cooling unit, make sure that you check the asset rating first, before you decide which model to get. There are several models and types that need to have some thought of where they will be placed and how they will be most effective, many will need the windows and doors kept closed, and may only cool a small area, so as always, do your homework before you make your informed decision.
As well as the fuel used in cooling, spare a thought for water. During the summer, many counties suffer from a water shortage; processing water also uses fuel from treatment to delivery. Try to grab a bargain water container and plum it into your rainwater drainpipes. Use this to water your garden in the summer. There are a number of plants that don’t like tap water anyway, so by giving them a good dose of rainwater you would be doing them a big favour.
Don’t forget, clocks will be changing at the end of March, and British Summer Time will begin. Make sure that you change all your timers as well as clocks on the 29th March and start thinking now about how you will keep your cool.
