When it comes to dealing with your home’s climate control system, you might think that you would have to do a massive amount of work just to save energy and reduce costs. A few basic home automation tools might be all you need to slash your bills and dramatically reduce your carbon footprint. New energy efficiency solutions are available that make it easy to manage your power consumption, as these three basic hacks illustrates.
1. Switch To A Zoned Climate Control Layout
Zoned heating and cooling systems allow residents in different parts of your home to set their own temperatures depending on how the room feels to them. If someone isn’t using a space in your house, then it doesn’t make much sense to run the furnace and air conditioning inside of it. These systems are relatively easy to install, and your family will more than likely love the option to customize the temperature in each area. In many cases, people have actually found that using them leads to fewer arguments since nobody has to put up with any settings they don’t like.
2. Use Smart Scheduling Technology
Getting the most out of your home climate control systems means getting new thermostats from a company that understands how this technology can benefit individual homeowners. Once you have a programmable thermostat installed, you’ll be able to enjoy greater smart home energy savings by figuring out the times you’re most likely going to be out of the house. Learning thermostats use an onboard artificial intelligence algorithm to track your patterns and automatically reduce the use of your home’s climate control system whenever you’re not around.
That being said, you don’t necessarily need something that sophisticated to start out with. Try using a thermostat schedule based on the times you know you’re not going to be in your home. Assuming you’re able to configure it correctly, your thermostat can automatically switch your heat or AC unit off the moment you’re not going to be around. This will save you time, energy, and money as far if done so accurately.
3. Use Data-Driven Efficiency Features
Geofencing devices tie your thermostat into a mobile device, so you can enjoy even more home energy savings by having the system turn off the moment that you leave. Advanced thermostat settings control your climate control system based on the amount of information they collect about your day-to-day routine. If you’re gone for long periods of time, then they can power down your system to a very low level in order to save substantial amounts of energy. Over time, these systems can actually cut some bills in half despite the fact that most people who use them don’t even notice that anything is different.
Homeowners who’d like to experiment with a hands-on approach can create a spreadsheet document where they track their usage over the next few months. Chances are that you can probably find a few ways to slash power without ever making a difference in your comfort level because most people won’t notice a 1-2° change either way.