For the whole time we’ve been down south now, we’ve learned so much about managing the toughest time of the year when it comes to temperature.
Fortunately, the heat pump doesn’t get called upon for heating often at all during the Winter.
In fact, we’ve gone entire cold seasons without ever flipping the thermostat over to heating. Basically, if we wake up to a frigid beach house, we just use the space heater. But then comes Summer. From about now, mid May, through June and into September, we deal with high heat. The first Summer we were here, we didn’t know anything more than immerse ourselves in A/C. But we also took a beating financially by going with this approach. That’s led us to learn just what we can do to prevent overspending for cooling our home. And over the years, we have the basics completely down pat. First, it’s an A/C tune up from the Heating and A/C company. Then, it’s to seal up the beach house. Like, replace worn weather stripping around doors and seal up any and all gaps we find inside and on the exterior of the house. Also, pulling the drapes to stop direct sunlight heating and having some discipline with the thermostat round out the basics. So now, we are looking at the minor things that end up driving the A/C demand. This Summer, we are not going to use the stove or the oven for cooking because they heat up the house. So it’s either the grill or the air fryer for cooking during summer.