There are several key factors in your home that can cause high energy costs. Learning the barriers to bigger energy savings and knowing how to remedy problematic areas can help you to drive high energy costs down to more manageable levels.

Sealing air leaks
Your home’s exterior must be sealed tightly to prevent both heat loss and heat gain. This is what happens when air leaks occur:

  • In summer, you’ll experience heat gain, because warmer air (outside) will always travel to a cooler space (your home). That cooler air will drive the home’s temperature up, causing your A/C to work harder in order to compensate for the gain.
  • In winter, your home will experience heat loss. Because of the path that warm air follows, warm air inside your home will travel out through the leaks.

You can solve air leak problems by sealing your home with caulk around areas like doors and windows.

Fixing leaks in ductwork
The ductwork in your home is also prone to leakage, as it’s comprised of a series of tubes or pipes, all of which are connected together to deliver conditioned air into your home. When these connections leak, you’ll lose valuable conditioned air, because warm air always travels to a cooler space. But don’t use caulk to seal these leaks; you’ll need to buy a special sealant for ducts called mastic.

Improving insulation
Around your home’s exterior, you’ll also want to stop the movement of heat as much as possible with insulation improvements. Insulation acts as a barrier to prevent heat from moving out of the home in winter and to keep heat from moving into the home during summer.

Maintaining HVAC equipment
Servicing your HVAC equipment regularly will also help to ensure peak efficiency, slashing those high energy costs. Be sure to give your furnace a tune-up in the fall, and your air conditioner a tune-up in the spring.

To give your energy savings a big boost, use these four techniques to combat high energy costs—and you’ll notice an improvement in home comfort too. For help, contact Around The Clock Air Conditioning & Heating today! We serve homeowners in the greater Los Angeles area.

Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about combating high energy costs and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Around the Clock Air Conditioning & Heating services Los Angeles, North Hollywood and the surrounding areas in California. Visit our website to see our current specials and get started today!