Tracking Electric Bills During AC Season

TRACKING ELECTRIC BILLS DURING AC SEASON

Are you keeping a close eye on your electric bills? Year over year, we’ve watched them go up each month, evaluated suppliers, and tried to keep our electric use down. If you’re already thinking about the sky-high bills you’ll receive this summer, then it might be time to upgrade the biggest electricity user in your home: your central AC system.

Yes, upgrading your central AC system is an investment, but how do you see the return on that investment? By significantly lower electric bills year over year thanks to a significant jump in your unit’s efficiency thanks to its SEER rating.

The standards for energy efficiency are set by the U.S. Department of Energy with a SEER rating assigned to every piece of cooling equipment. The higher the SEER, the greater the efficiency, the less electricity needed to cool your home.

CONSIDER THESE STATS:

If your AC was installed prior to 2006, the average SEER was 10. Now due to age, that same piece of equipment has a SEER of 7 or 8.

The minimum SEER allowed to be installed today is a 13.2. According to our Comfort Specialists, customers are upgrading to a minimum of 16 SEER the last two years.

For every increase in SEER, you should see a 4-6% decrease in your electricity costs.

And don’t forget, if your air conditioning unit is more than 10 years old, not only has the efficiency gone down but it most likely uses R22 and should be replaced in the near future. Due to its negative environmental impact, the EPA has been phasing out residential use of R22 for over a decade and it is now effectively banned - both from being produced and imported.

Call us today at 203.227.5181 to schedule an in-home consultation with one of our Comfort Specialists and let us help you save year after year.