Roofing And Windows To Reduce Cooling Costs
When you set out to decrease your cooling costs, buying the most energy-efficient equipment you can find is a good place to start. On the other hand, if your home heats up as fast as or faster than your AC system can cool it down, you may still end up overpaying to cool your home. Thus, you need to take steps to decrease heat gain in order to reap the full benefits of an energy-efficient cooling system. Start by upgrading your roofing and your windows.
Energy-Efficient Roofing
One good choice for roofing is a metal roof. Metal is a naturally reflective material as opposed to asphalt which absorbs the sun's energy. If you clad your home with asphalt shingles, the shingles will heat up during the day and some of the heat they absorb will leak into your home, thus driving up your cooling costs. By way of contrast, metal roofing treated with an emissive coating will reflect most of the sun's energy away from your home, and what heat it does absorb, it will release back into the atmosphere. In this way, metal roofing can reduce your cooling costs by up to 40%.
Energy-Efficient Windows
The key to an energy-efficient window is not necessarily the number of panes it contains, but the space between the panes. This layer of gas acts as a buffer to reduce energy transfer from the inside surface of glass through the outside surface of glass. While having a multi-pane window is a good start toward isolating your home environment from the outside world, the sun's UV rays can travel right through glass and gas. Thus, UV rays can still heat up your home whether you have multi-pane windows or not. To prevent heat gain, you should use a layer of window film to reflect the sun's UV rays before they have a chance to enter your home. If you do this, you can decrease your cooling costs by up to 23%.
The above-cited examples should provide evidence that reducing heat gain is the key to reigning in summer cooling costs. While you should do as much as you can to prevent your home from heating up in the first place, you also need to realize that no matter what you do, some heat gain is inevitable. Thus, the best defense against summer heat is to pair your defenses against heat gain with an energy-efficient cooling system to cool things down whenever they start to heat up.
Contact a contractor like Pure Air Filters Inc for better help reducing your energy costs.