Easy Ways Lower Your A/C Bill

http://www.greenintegrateddesign.com/blog/easy-ways-lower-your-ac-bill

In Phoenix, air conditioning accounts for about 60% of your home’s electricity costs. In some cases, during the summer, energy bills will double because of the A/C use. To combat these outrageous energy prices, most Phoenicians will switch to the APS and SRP time of use plan. On this plan most will only do laundry at night and will set the thermostat up during the day. Here are seven ways you can save on A/C costs without spending thousands of dollars upgrading your A/C unit to a high efficiency unit.

Leave your doors open
Your interior doors of course! Phoenix air conditioning companies have spread a lot of false information out there about closing your vents and doors.  You want all the interior doors open or at least cracked to help circulate air back to the return.

Seal the ductwork
Around Phoenix, most homes are losing between 20% and 30% of their conditioned air in their attic. If 60% of your energy bill is coming from your use of A/C in the summer and 20% of your conditioned air isn’t making in to the actual rooms then you can see how that can add up to quite a bit- especially over 5 years!

Some HVAC contractors don’t seal the ductwork on new, high efficiency air conditioners which is like driving a Prius with a hole in the gas tank.  Sealing your HVAC ductwork not only saves money on your heating and cooling bills, it brings less dust in the home too.

Air seal your home
Sealing your home, especially around exterior doors, electrical and plumbing penetrations, and recessed canned lights will keep your conditioned air inside and the outside air outside. Chances are, when your house was built, the builder ran wires and plumbing plates through holes in the wall that are much bigger than the wires themselves. That extra space around the wires can let your expensive, air-conditioned air leak outside—and invite hot, summer air inside. This leads to heat gain quickly and makes your A/C unit work harder and more often.

Install shade screens
Shade screens block up to 90% of the sun’s conductive heat while still allowing sunlight in. Windows account from more than half of your homes heat gain because they have no insulation value and are (obviously) transparent.

If you’ve been holding back on shade screens because you don’t like the way they look, shop around! There are a lot of discrete designs that are coming out. Or, take them off in the winter! Shade screens are typically clipped onto the frame and can be very easily removed after the summer is over.

Increase your insulation’s R-value
Are you even surprised that Phoenix attics get really hot during the summer? The temperature difference between the attic and the house can be a major contributor to high A/C costs. Having the insulation up to R-38 can protect your home from taking on the heat from your attic and make sure it’s not taking a toll on your bill.

Make sure there’s no connection between your garage and your house
This is one of the lesser known causes of high energy bills and is surprisingly common in houses in Glendale, Scottsdale and Gilbert. Like the attic, the garage gets very hot during the summer. Temperature differences is one of the  main drivers of heat gain and having a direct connection to that is like filling a pool with a slash in the liner.

Annual A/C unit tune up
​The most important aspect to this tip is that the tune ups are done by a trusted, experienced, and reliable contractor. I personally know that finding a reliable HVAC contractor can be difficult.  Just because your friend is in the air conditioning business does not necessarily mean that they will do a good job.  I have been in too many homes where an AC contractor and friend installed a new unit and cut way too many corners simply because that’s the way they’ve been doing it for the last 20 years.  After that’s done, fixing any of their work is much more difficult.

Here’s an easy test that you can do yourself to see if you’re paying too much for your A/C. With the A/C on, close a bedroom door. Place your hand under the door to see if you can feel air coming out of the room. If you feel air coming out then your room pressures are unbalanced and you are probably paying too much for your A/C. Have an APS or SRP Home Energy Auditor do a home performance assessment to actually measure the pressure in each room to determine if correction is needed.

​Following these tips are a great first step to lowering your bills and taking control of your A/C use. For other ways to save money on your utility bills, be sure to check out our past articles and get up to speed on APS and SRP energy audits for your home. Feel free to call Green ID for more information or schedule your energy audit.

Best Practices All Air Conditioning Companies Should Follow

What best practices does your company follow during my installation?

This single question posed to AC contractors can reveal a lot on how the company performs their installations.  You can trust and like your sales rep but if they don’t know or you get a blank stare as a initial response, you’re better off finding a contractor who is a little less polished but knows their installation crews.  In Phoenix your air conditioner replacement is the most important day of its life and you want to carefully screen any AC contractor that gives you replacement costs.

Experienced air conditioning contractors are good because they know where the hiccups occur during an air conditioner install and how to avoid them and they know what the most common call backs are and how to avoid them. Most of the time doing the right thing requires a little extra effort on their part during the AC install. For most AC contractors this is not the standard way of doing their installs and just like learning how to swing a golf club the correct way verses the easy way, it takes them out of their comfort zone and most would rather just skip doing the extra effort verses spending a little more time, effort and materials to do it right. 

You definitely want to hear an air conditioning contractor tell you they do the following:

1. Charge the system with the correct amount of refrigerant after installation. This is not factory settings as every system comes with refrigerant already charged it. Many contractors just leave the factory charge and do not bother adding any more or measuring to find out how much more is needed and this is a big problem. If the distance from your outside condenser to the inside air handler is more than 15 feet, your AC contractor should be adding more refrigerant as the manufacturers only add enough refrigerant for 15 feet of refrigerant line.

2. Size the unit according to what your home needs, not based on the square footage of the house alone. This requires a Manual J calculation on the house so you should see your contractor measuring your windows and actually going in your attic to measure the insulation. 

3. For package roof units, you want a side by side elbow, not a down draft and not a over-under aka twist elbow. This is a major no no that most AC contractors are guilty of not following. Down draft and over-under elbows are cheaper and easier to install and require less labor and materials but are NOT best for your energy bills, comfort and the life of your system. If your AC contractor is really stuck in their ways or really lazy, they will make up excuses on why down draft and over-under elbows are OK to install, they may even believe what they are saying is true but hold firm in your affirmation that you want a side by side elbow. 

4. They install supply and return plenums. A plenum is a transition between the ductwork and the unit. If your furnace or air handler is in the attic like most are in Phoenix, the plenum is likely a sheet metal box that has flex duct connecting into it and the other side is attached to the furnace. If your furnace or air handler is in the garage or closet, the return plenum is the framed box that it sits on and the supply plenum is the sheet metal on top. Plenums are important for proper airflow, allowing the unit to breath and mix air in the box before it hits the evaporator coils. They are not always included in the cost of an AC but should be. It is extra work to install them but every home should have them.

5. There are several other must-haves when requesting specifics during air conditioner bids but the list above are the basics to start you on the right foot. I would make sure all these things were done on my own home and you should too.  For a free quote on an air conditioner replacement cost and a list of our best practices call Green ID at (602) 926-1650 to speak with our comfort consultants.

A visit to Hoover Dam Can Teach Lessons in Quality Building

This past Fourth of July my family made a stop at the Hoover Dam on route to Las Vegas.  The Hoover Dam is an engineering marvel on a massive scale.  For more than 70 years the damn has stood with almost no structural and decorative changes taken place.  You can still see the surveying notes along the tunnel walls and the original tiling is a work of art.  I felt like a lot more care and craftsmanship went into building the damn and all structures before the days of commodity construction.  Take old sheet metal ductwork for example, only a tin knocker had the knowledge and skill to install a home’s duct system.  These days flex duct is used and can be installed by almost anyone, which has lead to excessive conditioned air wasted to the outside and huge inefficiencies.  How long have these careless installations been doing on?  One indicator is that it is not hard to find an HVAC contractor who has been “doing this for 20 years” and has never sealed a duct system.  I’m not saying we need to go back to the days of painfully slow production and growth, but perhaps a little more common sense and a sense of pride in ones work will go a long way and have positive impacts for generations to come.

Easy DIY Energy Saving Tip

The APS and SRP energy audits have a prescribed set of standards each auditor has to check.  Outside the usual duct leakage, air leakage and insulation checks it is up to the auditor to decide what services they want to provide.  At Green ID, we pride ourselves on our quality work and customer satisfaction.  We think that our customers get a little more for their money when they use our services compared to other contractors, but there are some efficiency tests homeowners can do themselves to check on their efficiency.  Below is one DIY tip that is easy to do and not very well known.

Back east, bathroom toilets were occasionally piped with hot water rather than cold water.  It is easy to check if yours wasting hot water.   Water heating can be the second biggest energy user in your home and costs will dramatically increase every time you flush the toilet it replaces 3.5 gallons (average toilet water use) of hot water.  It is easy to check if your toilets are connected by turning on the corresponding sink’s hot water line.  Run it until hot water starts to come out.  By the way, this is a good time to take a thermometer and measure the actual temperature of your hot water.  Ideally it should be 125 – 130 degrees.  If it is higher, the water heater is overheating the water (130 degrees will begin to burn you) and don’t worry about the dishwasher, it uses its own heating element while running.  If it is lower, you risk Legionaries disease growing in the water pipes.  Anyway, once the water is hot, shut it off and flush the toilet.  As it refills, take off the top and put your hand in the water stream that’s refilling the tank (this is clean drinking water and you can touch it) and see if it is hot water coming out.  If it is, call Green ID at (602) 684-0462 and have our plumber change the supply to cold.  Your wallet will thank you as will your family when you take all out to dinner with the money you’ve saved.