I’m learning that if I just make a decision and then commit to that decision, things go a lot better for me.
It’s the second guessing and indecision that can make for messy situations.
Last year, I made a decision about the HVAC and I stuck with it. A year later, I’m still saving on the HVAC cooling due to committing to the decision. My decision to get serious about saving money on the HVAC utility costs was driven out of necessity. The pandemic hit our finances hard. And we had to limit our spending in any way we could to make ends meet. So heating and cooling costs were very much on the table as far as cuts. However, where we live, there really isn’t much to cut from the HVAC heating budget. This is due to the fact that the heat pump doesn’t do all that much heating. Our winters are quite mild. But the air conditioning runs 8 months of the year with 4 of those months being almost night and day HVAC cooling. So there was money to be saved there for sure. Again, once the decision was made, there was nothing more to do but go save some money on the HVAC cooling. I started by making sure that our house was tight to make the most of the efficiency of our HVAC equipment. Then, I stopped completely all the direct sunlight heating. I just covered up all the window that got direct sunlight during the day. Those steps were crucial and quite easy. Where some real commitment came into play was with the HVAC thermostat setting being significantly higher.