Introduction
Air conditioning is slowly becoming an essential home appliance due to the rising heat waves. According to Handy, air conditioning is surrounded by many myths. While some of these myths are harmless, others are hurting your wallet. Let’s check out the economical myths surrounding air conditioning.
The Myths
Turning down the thermostat way will cool your home faster – This becomes an obvious lie when you start analyzing the myth. Even if you turn down the thermostat to the lowest setting, the compressor has a limit. So, the AC won’t cool your home faster.
However, when you set it to the lowest setting, the compressor keeps running consistently to maintain that low temperature. That means you waste more money on power while being uncomfortable in a chilly room. Instead, it’s best to set the thermostat a few degrees lower than the outside temperature to be comfortable while saving a lot of power.
Air conditioning can cause summer cold – The air conditioning unit simply reduces the ambient temperature. It doesn’t spread a cold-causing virus that can infect you and make you sick. Instead, running the air conditioning unit can keep you from getting sick and spending money at the hospital.
It has filtration systems that improve indoor air quality and remove dust and a lot of allergens from your home. However, you need to make sure that the filters are cleaned and maintained so that mold and other types of contaminants aren’t being recirculated and dust from dirty filters released into your home.
Air filters don’t need to be cleaned every year – As mentioned above, air filters need to be cleaned and maintained to avoid allergens, mold, and other contaminants that can make you sick. Air filters trap dirt, dust, dead skin cells, and all kinds of allergens. They would be filthier if you live in a dry and polluted city environment.
That’s why it’s important to clean those filters every couple of months and replace them according to the manufacturer’s recommendation. While replacing filters you can also upgrade them with super fine fabric filters that can trap tiny particles that go down to the size of 3 microns.
The location of the thermostat doesn’t matter – This is the worst myth since the thermostat controls the efficiency and performance of your air conditioning unit. If it’s placed at the wrong location it can make your air conditioner use way more power than necessary.
For instance, if the thermostat is placed near the kitchen or the garage it is going to record higher or lower temperatures than the general temperature of your home and make the air conditioning unit use more power. That’s why you should place the thermostat at a central location of your home to keep the air conditioner performing optimally and not spike up the power bill.
Conclusion
Handy suggests that you think about all the above-mentioned myths and figure out if any of them makes sense. All the above-mentioned myths are making you spend more money in some way or another and that keeps you further away from your financial goals.
