Easy on the AC

One way to keep your home running more efficiently is to avoid going overboard on the A/C when it's warm. But how can you keep your house cool without it? Try some of these tips!

From abc.com's "Save Money On Home Cooling":

• Pull down the shades and draw the curtains to keep out the summer sun.
• When the sun's not hitting your windows, keep them open, and use fans to draw hot air up and out of the house.
• Don't use exhaust fans in your kitchen and bathroom for too long if your house is air-conditioned. 'In one hour, it can empty the whole house of all your conditioned air'...
  
• Make sure your filters are cleaned or replaced once a month and that your vents don't have any obstructions in front of them.

Treehugger's "10 Overlooked Low-Tech Ways of Keeping Your Home Cool" has a host of ideas, including the ever important "use a ceiling fan instead." Most families just use a few rooms each night -- their bedrooms. No need to air condition the rest of the home! Just ensure that all bedrooms have working ceiling fans, then run them all night to keep the cool -- and the energy -- focused on only the rooms in use.

Green is Sexy recommends something a little less conventional for the "darker greens" among us: "Save energy (and money!) by turning off the A/C at night ... and curling up with an ice pack. Yep. An ice pack. If you put an ice pack under your neck or in your hands at lights-out, you’ll cool your body down enough to fall asleep and stay asleep."

"Fall Back" Your Fans!

We're all aware that it's time to "fall back" when it comes to changing our clocks. But while "falling back" is fresh in your mind, consider switching your ceiling fans, too.

Reversing your fans to spin counter-clockwise helps draw the warm air down. TreeHugger reports that "if you reverse the direction of your fan, you can lower the thermostat on your heating/cooling unit by at least 5 degrees without losing comfort." That's quite a bit!

Just like using fans to keep cool in the hot months, using fans to keep warm in the winter is more efficient than using central heat/air. Instead of controlling the temperature in all the rooms in your house (including those you don't spend any time in like guest rooms, closets, and formal dining rooms), you are concentrating your energy usage where it's actually helpful.

So flip the switch on your fans now...or, if you're living in Florida and it's still 90 degrees out, just keep this tip in mind for January. Haha.

Chiles to keep you chilly?

Looking for ways to keep cool in the Southern summer? Well, here's a slightly unconventional yet environmentally-friendly idea: spicy foods.

Green is Sexy's article "Hot, Hot, Hot" says, "Have you ever noticed that the spiciest foods come from some of the warmest places? ... Chiles contain a sweat-inducing chemical compound called capsaicin. When you sweat, your body is cooling itself down and when that sweat evaporates, you get a natural feeling of relief."

Thai, Indian, and many Latin American foods are known for their use of chiles. So pair some spicy food with an evening breeze or your overhead fan, and you've got a cool night ahead!