How I Cut My Summer Utility Bill Over $500

Well the results are in, the utility reader came by this morning and it wrapped up my summer of testing. Earlier this year I decided my refrigerated was not only a royal pain but a huge drain on my wallet!

Yeah, I can hear it now turn your thermostat up! Well, we keep the house refrigeration set at 82 degrees far above what is recommended. Yes the house is well insulated and does have double-pane windows as well.

During the summer months my home office would run in the upper 80′s so I always kept fan’s running to push the colder air into the room.

At the beginning of May, I made the decision to cool my house this summer with an evaporative cooler. These units work great out here in the desert south-west, where our humidity is extremely low up until the monsoon season arrives.

I picked up a Champion RWC50, 5,000 CFM widow unit (and no I’m not getting paid by them to write this!) This summer running the evaporative cooler my office temperature stayed in the mid 70′s.

The rest of the house also stayed in the low to mid 70′s when the temperatures where not to extreme. When the outside outside temperatures where in the 107 to 113 degree range, I could see that the unit keep it right around 30 degrees cooler then the outside temps.

Lets look at the energy savings over the previous year.

Clearly the unit has more than paid for itself this year, and next year the savings will be even more appreciated. Next year there is another product I would like to add called Up-Duk.

The benefit of installing the Up-Duk unit is, instead of blowing the cold air out the window it is funneled into the attic providing a cooling effect there as well.

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