Incredibly, this is the first day I’ve smiled during the summer around here.
That’s because the beginning of September means that the beginning of the end of summer has commenced. That’s a large reason to smile for me. When you live in this region, putting up with multiple weeks of non stop heat plus humidity is just a small part of it. However, the other seven weeks are very attractive. So, September is sort of the gatekeeper to that time of year. Now don’t get me wrong, September still comes with plenty of high temperatures plus overwhelming humidity, but those days are now numbered. Yet, I’m not smiling due to the fact that a/c demand is about to go down. I’m smiling because I have been able to really smash our records when it comes to saving on HVAC and this summer is the high water mark for HVAC savings. The last couple of years I’ve gotten proactive when it comes to curbing the high costs of central a/c. When we first moved down here, there wasn’t much more we felt we could do than lean into the temperature control setting for summer. The heat and humidity were higher plus more intense than anything we had ever experienced. So we just stayed inside and applied more temperature control to stay cool. But of course, that gets luxurious plus you end up spending too much time inside. The first year, I did the basics but this year I really poured on the savings with cooking only outside on the grill plus hanging out the laundry instead of using the dryer. Those were just small portions of it plus I’ve saved hundreds over the course of the summer on HVAC costs.