Keeping cool for less energy in your Tampa home
As we just come out of another hot Florida summer, you might wonder how on earth people survived the summer in the Tampa Bay area without air conditioning. Or else, you might wonder how to cut down on your energy needs/consumption but still keep cool – and as the Bahia Realty Group knows well, plenty of first-home buyers (and others) want to keep their energy costs down.
Fans were an old solution that have been around for a long time. And I don’t mean the sort of feather fans used by Southern belles to flirt with, or the things that look like horizontal windmills hanging from the roof. The most effective fans are whole-house fans or attic fans. These are mounted in the roof, and they suck in cooler air from the outside and push the warmer air up into the attic space and out into the air again. The breeze created by this moving air is much cooler than still air, so fans can drop the temperature to a comfortable level. And they use up to 90% less energy than regular air-con.
To be fair, whole-house fans aren’t perfect. They can’t do anything about humidity, and they can bring in pollen and dust from outside, which is bad news if you have hay fever or allergies. They may have to be supplemented by regular air-con in the hottest days of summer, but they can work well on their own.
If you’re buying and renovating a home in the Tampa Bay area – or building a new one as part of a development – then maybe you should consider installing a whole-house fan as a way of keeping energy costs down. Not a do-it-yourself person but still interested? The Bahia Realty Group can help you find contractors to install a whole-house fan or anything else you need.
Jenn Cook