How about this for your conservative media: How to CONSERVE (save) money on Air Conditioning.
I’d imagine most people reading this are familiar with central heating and air conditioning. This is not a new concept. But given the summer heat is now upon us, I’d like to bring to light an alternative that tends to be more cost-effective: mini splits.
If you’re from a rural area, or somewhere that does not have a significant need for AC year-round, I’d imagine you have heard of mini splits. BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN’T, check this out. Rather than having an HVAC-style duct system that utilized airway ducts to pump cool air through your house, you can have a more centralized system in place that can be much more efficient both economically and at cooling your house.
Mini-splits work differently from traditional AC in that they create cool air at the source rather than at another location with the need to pump through vents. One of the reasons that vents might not be the most efficient is that the air while inside the vent can get warmer in transit, thus resulting in an overall less-cool house. The other main reason (and this is why I like mini-splits) is that you don’t need to cool the entire house.
Mini-splits work through copper tubes that transport freon to the ‘head unit.’ Essentially, you have a condenser outside the house that can feed coolant to the individual AC units in the house. With a traditional ducted system, you have to cool the whole house OR go around and close the vents in the individual rooms that you’re not using. That’s a pain in the butt because those vents are often in hard-to-reach places. You end up spending AC (and therefore money) cooling rooms that no one is in. Seems like a waste, right?
Mini-splits, on the other hand, can be controlled individually, and therefore can be turned on or off depending on what room you’re in. Right now, for example, I’m sitting at my dining room table with the refreshing AC turned on behind me, but the rest of the house is relatively warm. I’m basically conserving resources by allocating cool air specifically where it is needed, rather than wasting it on a big empty space!
Boom. Conservatism.
