Air conditioning, especially during the hot summer months, constitutes the bulk of your energy consumption at home. Consequently, increased need for cooling increases power consumption, which directly impacts the amount of money you spend on electricity bills. But you can reduce the amount of cash you spend cooling your home during these hot months of the year. This article discusses practical measures that you can take to bring down those unnecessarily high power bills. The remaining portions of the post will explore them deeper.

Use solar screens

During summer, windows account for between 10 and 25 percent of the heat that enters your house. Instead of playing catch up and cooling off that heat, you can be more proactive and stop that heat from entering your house. One of the ways you can achieve this preventive goal is by insulating your windows with solar screens and films, especially the ones that face the sun directly.

Utilize portable fans

Unless you have visitors in the house and you need to use the main central cooling system, you can switch it off and use a smaller portable fan. For instance, if you are in the kitchen, you can carry it there and cool that particular room where you are working. Portable fans consume half the amount of energy large fixed cooling systems use.

Optimize vegetation cover

If you have the privilege of living on your own compound, this measure will work best for you. You can use the vegetation cover of your compound to cut down on the amount of heat that enters your house. Most of the heat that enters your house is attributed to the sun shining directly on the roof and through the window openings of your house. If you have a proper vegetation cover around your house, you will block these heat entry paths and reduce the amount of air conditioning required to cool your home.

Take care of lighting

Another proactive measure you can take to reduce your cooling energy costs is taking care of your lighting. For instance, if you use traditional incandescent bulbs, they emit unnecessary heat into the house because 80 percent of the energy they use goes to heating instead of lighting. By eliminating and replacing them with LED bulbs, you will reduce up to 80 percent of the heat that comes through lighting. During the day, you can totally further reduce lighting heat emission by optimizing natural light.