How Roofing Can Protect Your AC Unit
An AC unit is designed to cool your house down once it starts to heat up. Thus, the more your home heats up, the harder and longer your AC unit has to run. In order to lower cooling costs, you should do everything you can to keep your home cool. The two biggest places that heat will leak into your home are through your roof and your windows. Thus, this is where you should start when trying to prevent wear and tear to your system.
Making Your Windows Heat Resistant
A double-pane window will help to isolate your home environment from the heat outside, but these windows will do nothing to stop UV rays from passing through. Once inside, UV rays will heat up whatever surface they fall on, and then these surfaces will heat up the air in your home. In order to filter out the UV rays, you need to install an energy-efficient window film. You can buy window films for a much lower price than you would pay to buy new windows. Moreover, they will help to decrease your cooling costs by up to 23%. Thus, if you are looking for a cost-effective way to reduce the strain on your AC unit, window film is a good place to start.
Replace Your Roof to Reduce Cooling Costs
Asphalt roofs are highly common, but their popularity has to do with their low cost rather than the superiority of their performance. The asphalt in the roofing can absorb heat from the sun and then pass that heat into your home. Replacing your roof is a much higher cost than installing a little window film on your windows, but if your roof needs to be replaced anyway, you should consider using a heat reflecting roofing material. Metal roofing is just such a material. A good metal roof can reduce your cooling costs by up to 40%.
Whenever your home starts to heat up, your AC unit will kick on to cool it back down. If you can reduce the amount of heat that leaks into your home, you can reduce the number of times that your AC unit has to kick on. While some costs, such as the cost of installing window film, are easy to budget for, other costs like installing a new roof may take longer to build up money for. In the end, everything you do to reduce the strain on your cooling system will pay for itself.
If you make changes to reduce your cooling bills but still find that they are high, contact a company like R & B Heating & Air Conditioning to see about repairing or replacing your current AC unit.