Getting through a Texan summer at home can be a real test if you don’t take measures to cool down your home, but there are real concerns about the detrimental effect that air conditioning can have on the planet. Here are some ways of cooling your home down without damaging the environment.
Get Out The Paint
One of the oldest and simplest methods for reducing the temperature in buildings is also one of the most effective: paint. The color of your home has a huge effect on the amount of solar heat it absorbs. Since ancient times, homes in hot places have been painted white to reflect the sun’s rays. Early nuclear bombers were also often painted in white in order to reflect the heat caused by atomic explosions. Recently, scientists at Colombia University have perfected a dual layer reflective paint that has cooling properties no matter what color it is applied in.
Turn Solar Energy Into Cooling Air
Texas gets a great deal of sun. This, of course, is why you are looking to cool down your home in the first place. The hot Texan sun doesn’t just have to be the cause of your hot-home troubles: it can also be part of the solution. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems are typically bad for the environment because they consume a great deal of electrical energy. By installing DC solar cells onto the roof of your home, you can power an air conditioning unit without harming the planet. The best bit about this workaround? The more the sun beats down upon your home, the more consistent your energy supply for cooling will be.
Install Motion-Sensitive HVAC
It is perfectly normal practice to set your HVAC system on a timer—on during the day and off during the night. Whilst this may be effective in cooling your home, it also means that the system will be running when nobody is around. This is a huge waste of energy. Motion-sensitive HVAC systems only activate when they sense a person entering a room and reduce electricity usage drastically. There are plenty of local HVAC contractors Waxahachie TX, Dallas, and Austin that can help install these rather complex systems.
Send Heat Down Into The Earth
Geothermal energy usage isn’t a particularly modern innovation, but most people associate it exclusively with heating homes, not cooling them. Geothermal energy pumping systems are actually completely reversible. They can indeed distribute the thermal energy stored in the earth around a home, but they can also be used to carry heat away from a house, storing it under the ground. The reason this works is because geothermal energy has to be distributed using a conduit: usually water. By allowing this water to heat up inside your house and then cycling it down and allowing it to dissipate, geothermal energy systems can effectively cool your home with minimal electrical energy usage. Geothermal energy units are great for the environment, and can also save homeowners up to 65 percent on their heating and cooling energy bills.