Choosing the Right Cooling Method for Your Home
Central America is hot, with an average temperature throughout the year of 81 degrees Fahrenheit (or 27 degrees Celsius). The average temperature varies a bit depending on which part of Central America you’re in, but you’ll still be dealing with a lot of heat throughout most of the year. The question is, what are you going to do about it?
The Price
For many people, how they cool their home depends on their budget and resources. Not everybody can afford to install a decent air conditioning system in a single room of the house or have an HVAC system installed throughout their home. A single air conditioning unit can cost around $500 USD, and that’s not even including installation costs and maintenance fees. On top of that, you have to consider the electrical cost of running the air conditioning unit as often as you’d like.
It’s much more economical to just buy a few fans and spread them throughout your home. You can complement this cheap cooling system by opening doors and windows throughout the house during the day to keep the rooms cool and prevent heat buildup.
There are a number of ways you can cool down your house without buying an expensive air conditioning system. Painting walls in light colors and avoiding dark colors as much as possible can help to keep your cooling costs low and decrease the overall temperature of the home. Even the color of your floors and curtains can affect how much heat is reflected throughout the home and how cool the home is.
If you are having a home built somewhere in Central America, may want to consider how the construction of the home affects airflow. A well-constructed home that’s designed with a mind for airflow can stay very cool when windows and doors are kept open. However, if you are going to have air conditioning units installed, it’s best to have that done during the construction process to minimize your long-term costs.
The Maintenance
No matter what kind of cooling method you use in your home, you will have maintenance costs to deal with. Maintaining an air conditioning system means changing out the filter and emptying the excess water periodically. This typically needs to be done about three or four times a year, depending on how much usage the system gets and the quality of the air conditioning system. To save money, you may be able to do at least some of the maintenance yourself, emptying water and wiping off filters every so often. This also improves the efficiency of the AC unit and keeps it from wearing out as quickly.
If you’re using an HVAC system in your home, you’ll want to clean out the air filters occasionally, probably twice a year. You can also wipe those down so that they last longer. One way to keep your system running more efficiently and keep it from wearing down so quickly is to have your home thoroughly cleaned several times a year. If you hire a cleaning service to do deep cleaning for you and you do a decent job of making your home neat on a weekly basis, your HVAC system will run more efficiently and have fewer problems.
Even if your cooling method for your home involves some simple fans, maintenance is still important. You want to take apart the fans and clean them off every so often. Getting rid of the dust that has built up and helping them to run more efficiently. This will ensure that they last a lot longer, making it easier for them to run and helping them to do a better job of keeping your home cool. Fans that have a lot of dust buildup on the blades will spread dust throughout the house and put extra strain on the fan engine. They also won’t be able to produce cool air as well as clean fans would.
The Practicality
In many homes, deciding on a cooling method comes down to how practical one method is compared to another. It may not make sense to set up an air conditioning unit in a part of the house that is usually open to the outside, like an entry room or a patio. It also may not be wise to set up air conditioning in a basement due to the high humidity levels and the way an air conditioning system can add to the humidity.
Because of the way your house is designed or where it’s located, setting up a fan or two may not simply be enough to provide adequate cooling in the house. That may be truer in some rooms than others. You want to consider your health and your children’s health and how setting up a fan, HVAC system, or AC unit will keep all of you cool and healthy.
It can be well worth it to pay for an AC unit to be set up in one or two rooms of the house to allow for better comfort. Families that decide to just have a couple of small AC units in their home and not cool their whole house with air conditioning typically set up these units in the bedrooms. This is where you may be spending a lot of time and where it will be important to have a cool temperature so that you can sleep more soundly. If the bedroom is too hot, you may have trouble sleeping well, and that can cause a lot of additional problems.
Consider how practical it is for your budget and for your comfort needs to choose one kind of cooling system over another. Because each family and each home is unique, there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution for the problem of keeping the home cool. Discuss your options with your family, and consider talking to companies that install HVAC systems and air conditioning units to see what your choices might be.
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