How To Get A Better Sleep By Adjusting Your HVAC

For a lot of people getting to sleep at night is relatively effortless. You lie down, close your eyes, and as long as things are dark and quiet, you can drift off after a few minutes. It’s recommended we get about eight hours on average, in order to feel refreshed and focused, ready to face another day.

Which is why when we can’t get to sleep, it can have a major impact on how we deal with the day. Exhaustion, an inability concentrate and lack of alertness are just a few things that can plague us without proper rest. Summer in Florida can, unfortunately, be one of those things that prevent us from getting some proper rest. But if you use your air conditioning properly, it can save you that discomfort, and here’s how.

Settle On Your Ideal Temperature

This is going to be all a matter of your personal priority. While everyone is going to have a different idea of what constitutes a cool but tolerable temperature, there’s more to just physical preference behind the ideal temperature setting; there’s also the question money.

The lower you set your temperature, the higher your electricity bill is going to be, since you’re making your air conditioning work more.

Industry experts recommend that if you’re trying to strike a balance between a temperature you can still tolerate, and a temperature that won’t overwork your air conditioner, 78° is the ideal temperature. However, if you’re not as concerned about your utility bills, then set your AC as cool as you like!

If You Have Ceiling Fans, Use Them

Some homes have fans built into the ceiling, a legacy of the days before central air conditioning, or just a way to save energy. Make use of these fans, if even if you have air conditioning in your home! You can actually make your AC operation more efficient this way.

A fan spinning in a counter-clockwise direction ensures more even air circulation throughout a room, forcing cool air that’s moved up to go back downwards, and creating a pleasant breeze sensation. This can actually reduce the amount of work your AC needs to do at night while you sleep to keep you cool.

Get Rid Of Humidity

This is probably the most important function that good air conditioning can do for you. Humidity is the property that air has of holding water. When there is high humidity, that is, a high amount of moisture in the air, you can actually feel the difference as thicker, muggy air.

The humidity effect also has a tendency to magnify the feeling of heat, so when summer in Florida arrives, and humidity goes up, it can feel suffocating and uncomfortable, especially at night when you’re trying to sleep.

Humidity even interferes with your ability to sweat correctly! Normally, sweat is a good thing, since your perspiration then evaporates into the air, and this cools down your body. But with high humidity, there’s already so much moisture in the air that your sweat does not evaporate, so you remain both hot and sweaty.

Good air conditioning eliminates this, keeping the air dry and comfortable. Everyone in Melbourne, FL knows that summer can get brutally hot and uncomfortable. Make sure your air conditioning is ready to face the potential heat waves of summer, and allow you to sleep soundly!

Your Complete Guide to Saving Money on Your Energy Bill

Winter tends to be the “money saving” season for residents of Florida since the weather becomes almost ideal for many people, especially tourists; not cold at all, but not too hot either.

This often means that some people enjoy their lowest energy bills of the year since nothing is running. But once summer returns, it means your AC system will be working hard to keep you cool. But you can do your part to keep those bills down by asking yourself a few questions about your household.

Have Your Ducts Been Inspected For Leaks?

Air ducts are just very large, thin pipes that, instead of carrying liquid like your plumbing, carry gas, in this case, chilled air. If your ducts have never been inspected to see how they are holding up, now is a good time to get that work done.

A leaking pipe means cool air is escaping, and not getting into the rooms it’s meant to. That’s a drop in efficiency that shows up with higher bills are your AC works more than it needs to.

More importantly, however, ignoring a leak won’t make it go away, and will often make the problem worse and more expensive when it gets too big to ignore. Have an expert do a checkup of your HVAC and ducts to clean up, maintain and repair small problems like leaks before they get big.

How Old Is Your Thermostat?

If the answer to this question is that your thermostat comes from the last century, and, more surprisingly, doesn’t even have a digital interface, think about an upgrade. Older thermostats, even when they still work fine, are inefficient compared to modern products.

New thermostats, in addition to being more precise about temperature measurement, do a lot more than just turn on and off. Low-end thermostats can be programmed to run at specific temperatures during certain parts of the day.

This includes operating minimally during weekdays of the school year when no one may be home, only to automatically start cooling a few minutes before people return. Advanced “smart thermostats” can analyze living habits and automatically adjust temperatures based on this activity. They can even be operated by your smartphone.

Do You Have Curtains Or Drapes?

Your windows don’t just admit light; they admit heat as well. Sunlight can amplify heat in a room, so when you have a hot summer’s day, with your AC working to keep the home cool, exposed windows in the afternoon are making that hot air even hotter. As a result, your AC needs to work harder and longer to counteract that.

If you have curtains, drapes, or blinds, these can make a big difference during the brightest, hottest parts of the summer day. Just bringing them down to blunt the heat helps your AC to keep the climate under control. Conversely, in the winter, if you’d like things a little warmer, those same windows letting sunlight in can also help to warm your room up, so it works both ways!

Everyone enjoys the convenience and lifestyle that comes from living in Melbourne, FL. Just make sure that while you’re enjoying your life, you're not wasteful about your AC. Keeping your home cool costs money, and you’ll pay more every month than you need to if you’re careless.