5 Tips For Keeping Your House Cool & Your Energy Bill Low

Summer is coming to and end, but we still have some warm days left before the temperature
starts dropping. The heat of summer can force many homeowners to make a difficult choice – stay cool with AC but risk a sizeable electricity bill, or sweat it out and keep costs low? Thankfully, there are some easy and inexpensive ways to keep your house cool and your AC bill low this summer – here are some of our favorites.

1. Night Air is Your Friend: Although the days may be hot, Mother Nature supplies us with an ample amount of cool air during the nighttime – so use it! Open your windows at night to let cool air in. If you’re willing to get up early in the morning to close them, this can make a huge difference in your daytime home temperature.
2. Keep Your Unused Rooms Sealed: There’s no reason to try to cool rooms you aren’t using. Closing the doors to unused parts of the house makes the space you need to chill smaller and easier to manage, trapping cold air in.
3. Change Our Your Lights: This one is great because it provides two benefits at once – switching from old incandescent bulbs to new CFL (compact fluorescent) bulbs simultaneously lowers energy costs while cutting excess heat. More than 90% of the energy used by incandescent bulbs is radiated as heat, so switching to CFLs is an easy way to cut costs and temperatures.
4. Use Those Fans: It’s a small change, but using the exhaust fans in the bathroom or kitchen can help to blow hot air out of the house.
5. Close the Blinds: No wonder your house is hot if you’ve got the sun streaming in all day! Close your blinds and curtains during the day to keep the suns rays – and the heat they bring – out of your house.

Contact Your Michigan Real Estate Experts

We hope these tips help you keep cool, and if you’re looking for a house of your own to beat the heat, we can help. Whether you move to Grand Rapids, Charlevoix, or any place in between, you’re not just buying a home, you’re buying a community – and we can help you find both. Feel free to check out our open houses or search for homes for sale in Michigan, and don’t forget to check back to this blog periodically for more tips and info on finding, living in, and maintaining a home of your own!