Preventing Summer Heat Buildup in Your Home

The air conditioner in your Delaware home works hard to keep you comfortable throughout the cooling season, and summer heat buildup resulting from the sun beating down on your home plays a major role in the overtime your air conditioner puts in to keep your home cool. These tips will help you combat heat gain and take some of the load off of your air conditioner while considerably improving your home’s energy efficiency and your comfort level.

Paint your home

When it’s time to paint the exterior of your house, opt for lighter colors. Dark exteriors absorb up to 90 percent of the sun’s radiant energy, and some of that energy enters your home, heating up its interior and making your air conditioner work harder to keep it cool.

Treat your roof

Nearly one-third of the heat that builds up in your home comes through the roof, regardless of how light or dark your roofing material is. Apply a reflective coating to your roof to ward off much of this heat gain and give your A/C a break. Reflective roof coating is available at your local home improvement store and is applied with a paint roller. Depending on your roofing material, choose either a white latex coating or an asphalt-based coating.

Paint your walls

The color of the inside walls of your home’s outer envelope can affect how much heat enters your home. Light-colored walls reduce heat gain and will help preserve the siding on your east-, west- and south-facing walls.

Cover your windows

Windows account for about 40 percent of the heat gain in your home. Apply reflective window coatings to reduce heat gain and prevent your upholstery and carpeting from fading. In our region, a combination film works best to control heat gain in the summer and take advantage of it in the winter.

For more expert advice about preventing summer heat buildup, please contact us at Sobieski Services, Inc. Our goal is to help educate our customers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC and plumbing systems).

Image Credit: Nicole Salow