June is upon us, and for many that means starting to use our air conditioning units regularly. On an average summer day, Americans provide enough cold air to produce 16 trillion ice cubes. Check out these cool tricks to stop the cost of keeping cool from making you sweat.

Energy Facts:

• To cool your house efficiently, your air conditioner has to be cool itself. Try to keep it in the shade. An air conditioner exposed to direct sunlight will use up to 5% more energy than a shaded one.
• Air conditioners located on the north side of houses generally use less energy than those on the south or west sides, where it’s sunnier.
• If your air conditioner’s already in the sun, you can build a simple wooden shade screen for it. (But don’t block the air flow.)

Simple Ways to Save Energy:

• If you’ve got central air conditioning: Don’t close your vents. Closing too many of them actually reduces operating efficiency. Instead, reduce the air flow to unused rooms by partially closing the registers. Whenever possible, leave the room door partly open to keep the system operating efficiently.
• Turn the air conditioner off when you leave the house for several hours or more.
• A thermostat’s not a throttle, so don’t switch your air conditioner to a colder setting when you turn it on. It won’t cool the room any faster, but it will waste energy when you forget to turn it back up.
• Put a timer on your room air conditioner, or use a programmable thermostat on your central air conditioner. You don’t need to leave your air conditioner on all day to have a cool house when you get home. Hardware stores sell timers that will automatically start your air conditioner shortly before you get home. You may never notice the difference… until you see the savings on your electric bill.
• Keep the heat out. Minimize the amount of heat entering your home from outside by closing shades and curtains on hot days – sunlight coming through windows can account for 20% of your air conditioning bill. And don’t leave windows and doors open while your air conditioner is running.
• Set the thermostat as high as possible.

Caring for Coils:
You can save energy by taking care of air conditioner coils, just like your refrigerator coils. They won’t work efficiently unless the fins that cover the coils are clean and straight. So check them out every spring.

• If the fins are bent, you can carefully straighten them out with a plastic spatula. Or call a service person to repair them.
• If they’re dusty, dirty, or clogged with old leaves, you can vacuum them with your household vacuum cleaner. If the attachment on the vacuum won’t fit between the coils, blow the dirt away instead.

Don’t Forget the Filter
Air conditioners are equipped with filters to protect their fan blades, motors, and other internal parts. Replace or clean dirty filters. Dirty air filters are the #1 cause of air conditioning service calls. But filters are easy to replace and you can do it yourself. Put in a new one every month during the summer. Be sure all hardware is replaced and securely re-attached.

You may want to consider a permanent filter that you can wash instead of replacing. Some permanent filters restrict air flow too much for some units, so check first with a Recurve representative or another qualified technician.

Excerpted from 30 Simple Energy Things You Can Do To Save The Earth, by The EarthWorks Group.