Summer power bills in Tallahassee get people's attention. Here is a realistic list, ordered by what it costs you to do, with no promises about specific savings — every home is different.
Free changes worth making today
- Set the fan to AUTO instead of ON. Continuous fan re-evaporates moisture into the house and makes it feel worse at the same temperature.
- Close blinds on west- and south-facing windows during the afternoon.
- Use ceiling fans in occupied rooms only — they cool people, not rooms.
- Run bath and kitchen exhaust fans during and after showers and cooking.
- Keep supply and return registers unobstructed.
- Avoid deep thermostat setbacks; moderate ones recover without a long humid catch-up period.
Low-cost improvements
- Change filters on schedule — a restricted filter costs run time every single day.
- Rinse the outdoor coil gently with a hose and cut vegetation back at least two feet.
- Weatherstrip doors and seal obvious gaps around penetrations.
- Add an inexpensive hygrometer so you know whether your comfort problem is temperature or moisture.
- Shift heat-producing chores like laundry and baking to evening hours.
Investments that pay back in this climate
- Duct sealing. In a hot attic this is frequently the highest-return improvement available.
- Attic insulation brought up to current levels.
- Twice-yearly professional maintenance to keep coils clean and charge correct.
- Replacing an aging, inefficient system when it is genuinely at end of life — the run hours here make the efficiency difference meaningful.
What not to bother with
Closing vents in unused rooms does not save money on a typical residential system; it raises static pressure and can hurt performance. Turning the system completely off during the day in Florida usually backfires, because the house absorbs moisture that then takes hours of run time to remove.