With decreasing prices and better power efficiency of Air conditioners, it is becoming a normal part of every household.
It has become crucial to save us from the scorching heat of Indian summers.
I can’t even imagine a single day sleeping at night without AC especially when humidity is high.
But when the time to pay our electricity bill comes it hurts our pocket too with a huge amount.
For a rough estimate, air conditioners are responsible for 50-80% of our household electricity bills.
This is a big chunk of our salaries.
In this post, I have tried to list down all the major tips that will help you lower down your AC bills.
Most of the tips here are based on the cooling efficiency of the AC, the mechanism of refrigeration that works inside it.
Better cooling efficiency will lead to better power efficiency ultimately resulting in reducing bills.
1. Regular Servicing of AC
With time dust accumulates inside the AC unit. This makes the refrigeration cycle inefficient.
The AC cools the room slower but still consumes the same electricity, it can even consume more under stress and takes longer to cool the same room.
Eventually leading to increased electricity bills.
Also, your AC can degrade faster if it is not serviced regularly.
So it is very crucial to perform an occasional servicing of your AC.
If you live in polluted cities like Delhi. Servicing twice the year would be the best bet.
2. Keep the Air Filters clean
The air filters like PM2.5 filter, HEPA filter, etc filters out dust particles, kill bacteria and remove bad odor.
It helps to maintain a good air quality in your room.
The AC unit cools the room by circulating the air inside. This air passes through these air filters.
With time the air filters get dirty and need to be cleaned, if not done on time these filters block the air passage leading to inefficient air circulation which lowers cooling efficiency.
So clean your air filters frequently on a weekly basis to reduce power consumption.
3. Running on Ideal Temperature
Many people have a misconception of their AC cooling the room faster if the temperature is set to some lower value like 18 degrees celsius versus a higher value.
But that’s not the case.
Unless your AC is having inverter technology and turbo mode it cannot cool the room faster. The AC needs to increase its wattage and power of cooling which is not possible without inverter technology.
Due to this wrong assumption many people set their temperature settings to the lowest possible ultimately leading to higher electricity consumption.
You can save 3-4% of electricity monthly with an increase in every 1 degree of set temperature.
The ideal temperature for feeling comfortable is 23-26 degrees celsius.
Thus you can set the temperature to these values, you will not only feel comfortable but also save power and electricity bills.
Let’s take an example
Suppose until now you were running your AC on 18 degrees celsius.
But from now on you decided to run it at 25 degrees celsius from the next month.
The temperature outside is 40 degrees celsius.
Now, How much money will you save on the AC bill?
According to this formula
You will save a whopping 31% of electricity on AC monthly.
This is a huge saving.
This is the best method to save electricity.
Give it a try for a month and see the results yourself.
Note – This is just an approximation formula, the actual savings may vary
4. Use Sleep Mode and Timer Function
There are various modes in your air conditioner, two of them are sleep mode and the timer function.
Both can be used to save electricity in the night time. Major households do not know the use of these.
Sleep mode increases the temperature at night gradually. On highier temperatures the AC consumes less power.
Timer function is used to switch OFF the AC by setting a timer.
In simple words you can set a time at which your AC will automatically switch OFF. Timer function is very useful to be used at night.
When going to sleep at night you can set a timer to close the AC after say 3-4 hours. This way your AC will not run for the entire night and hence save electricity.
5. Use Energy Saver Mode
Energy Saver mode is given in each air conditioner unit.
It is introduced by the manufacturers so that you can save electriity by utilizing this feature.
Generally the compressor shuts down more often than normal in this mode. We know that compressor consumes approx 90% of power in an AC.
Hence it saves electricity by cutting off the compressor more often.
However this feature decreases the comfort level. Its best to use this mode at night.
In modern air conditioners like the LG dual inverter AC, it has feature to run the compressor at 40%, 60%, 80% power thus saving power.
I have compared both sleep mode and energy saver mode in a article, do check it out.
6. Use Ceiling Fans for Better Circulation
For sure an AC cools your room by circulating cooler air in the room but you can make this circulation faster by using ceiling fans.
Run your ceiling fan at max speed, it will not only make the air circulation faster but also will make you feel cool and comfortable even at higher room temperature.
A ceiling fan consumes very little power when compared to an AC.
With the use of a fan, you can run the AC at a higher set temperature. The combined use of both will eventually save electricity and money
7. Use Green Shade Net
Green shade net is usually made for doing terrace farming. It protects the crops and vegetation from direct sunlight.
Many people use it in there balcony to reduce the coming sunrays.
This can reduce the heating effect of sunlight slightly and hence the load of your AC finally. You AC will have to work less to cool your room and thus it will save power.
A green net can easily bring down the house temperature by 2-3 °C.
8. Place your AC outdoor unit away from sunlight
Not only does the cooling efficiency of an AC decrease when the outdoor unit gets direct sunlight on it but also the AC degrades faster.
It would be better if you place the outdoor unit away from sunlight, if it is not possible you can make a shed or some type of covering on the unit to save it from sunlight.
The same goes for a window AC, it should not get direct sunlight on it.
9. Always buy the latest model of AC with 5-star BEE rating
Higher the ISEER rating better the cooling efficiency which leads to less power consumption.
The AC efficiency ratings tend to decrease with time with newer and better set standards.
Suppose you buy a 5 star AC in 2021 but after 3-4 years this rating will reduce and it will not be a 5 star AC according to the newer standards.
Going for a 5 star AC rather than a 3 star AC would be better.
Many times vendors lower down the price drastically to sell old models of AC. Consumers tend to go for these cheap deals.
These old models use phased out or yet to be phased out refrigerants like R-22 which are not very good at cooling efficiency.
10. If AC is too old Sell it
With time newer models of AC that come in the market are better in terms of cooling efficiency with higher ISEER rating.
AC electricity consumption has gone drastically down within 10 years saving money.
Also, older units of AC tend to become less efficient consuming more electricity.
If your AC is way too old, like 6-10 years. It’s time to sell it and buy a new one.
Why?
I will give you my example
My family was using an 8-year-old AC, we ran it only at night while sleeping.
We were very conscious about the AC and ran it less frequently, trying to save money
Still, the electricity bills were huge.
Then someday we decided to sell the old one for a new AC, the buyer of our AC ran some AC company.
His men checked the wattage and consumption of AC. He was shocked to find the power consumption. It was very high.
He told us that if we buy a new one we can recover the price of buying it within 2 years as the electricity consumption of a new unit will be less than half of what our old AC consumed.
And His claims were true.
Our electricity bills reduced to half even when we were running the AC day and night.
11. Spread Curtains to reduce sunlight exposure
The rays coming from the sun are called infrared rays that heats up any object which comes in its path.
If your room has windows then during the day the sunlight will enter through it heating up the room.
Your Air conditioner will have to put more effort to cool the room when heat is produced from sunlight increasing the electricity consumption.
So use your curtains to spread it across the window. It will not block the sunlight by 100% but can block some percentage of it.
12. Don’t Open the Room often
Don’t go outside or inside of a room more often.
If you open the room frequently.
The cool air will leak outside making your AC work again to cool it to the desired temperature
This will increase the power consumption and electricity costs even if you have a 5 star AC with high ISEER ratings.
