The first thing I always see people say is plant a garden/trees or recycle, but I don’t have land, and I live in a red state that seems to hate recycling. The closest place to take plastic last I checked was over an hour away by car.
I know anything I do would have a negligible effect, but I’m sick of not doing anything.
Also is there anything I can do about the heat without running the AC? I try to leave the windows open, but they’re all on one side and don’t seem to allow for much airflow that way.
You could do some dialing in of your HVAC settings so it’s heating and cooling as little as needed to keep you comfortable, like pre-cooling at night when it’s colder outside, setting the temperature higher when you’re gone, and sealing up any gaps that let air in or out. You could see if your utility has a community choice aggregator or voluntary green pricing or some other way to allocate your power usage towards renewables.
I’m an energy manager as my day job, so this is like my favorite subject! If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away 😊
Unfortunately it’s an older model that doesn’t allow you to program different temps throughout the day. I do try to put it up to about 80 during work hours.
Is there a way to detect spots where you lose cold air during the summer short of buying a thermal scope?
Ah, darn. If it’s an older model, you would probably save a lot of energy just by upgrading. But if it’s owned by the landlord… split incentives suck.
And yes! You can get a stick of incense (they also make dedicated tools that do it with glycol) and waft it by your doors and windows to see where the air is flowing through
sometimes people say newer HVAC systems use a more eco friendly gas that loses its efficiency when there’s hot enough out there. is that true? what would you recommend for people to pay attention to regarding this?
See if your utility or a nonprofit offers energy assessments. Sometimes they have someone that can come to your house and use one of those. Or they give free LED bulbs. Or free switches so you can turn off outlets when not in use.
Yep! A lot of utilities offer low/no cost assessments, and I know mine give out smart power strips, LEDs, and lowflow faucets and shower heads if you get an assessment done
It’s not going to be nearly as comprehensive as a paid audit, but still worth looking into!