I’ve been down south now for about five years.
And in the first four years, I spent so much money when it came to the heating and cooling costs for my house.
Well obviously, the heating cost down here are negligible really so it’s more like I spent a ton on HVAC cooling costs. That just had to end. I mean, I was spending so much money on air conditioning that I could have purchased a new car. That is ludicrous so I did some research and visited the HVAC professionals at the HVAC company to see how I could change all that. Really, it all came down to changing my behavior. That’s really what it was all about. Instead of just cranking the air conditioning, I decided to change my perspective and consider what I was doing. That’s the first step when it comes to changing behavior. I started by waiting to flip the thermostat over to HVAC cooling until it really got hot. This way, I was a lot more accustomed to the heat by the time summer actually hit. And then I simply got proactive a bit by making sure the house was sealed up tight and that I was stopping any sort of direct sunlight heating. Both of those are pretty simple. But it was the behavior change with the thermostat that made the most difference. I simply programmed the digital thermostat and left it alone. I stopped myself from cranking down the thermostat setting because I simply felt like it. Instead, I just got accustomed to the rhythm of the summer and cranked a fan when I felt too warm.