Low-Cost Home Heating and Cooling

Supplementing your home’s central heating and cooling system with space heaters, room or portable air conditioners and other inexpensive equipment may be able to help you save money, reduce energy consumption and increase your level of comfort.

With sections addressing heating, cooling, humidity, and air quality, this book can help you select and use equipment, devise energy-saving strategies, and maintain better control of the comfort conditions in your home. Low-Cost Home Heating and Cooling focuses primarily on low-cost, electrically-powered equipment that is commonly available and affordable for people on nearly any budget.

Included in the Heating section: Converting back and forth from watts to BTU ratings, estimating the correct size of heater for a given space, determining the best type of heater, comparing the benefits of natural convection, forced convection and radiant heating, operating an electric heater safety, and understanding the benefits and limitations of kerosene heaters.

In the Cooling section: Understanding and comparing window air conditioner efficiency ratings, guidelines for proper sizing of a window air conditioner, tips on installation and efficient window a/c operation. Also in this section, a special chapter addresses the advantages and limitations of portable air conditioners, and offers selection guidelines and operational tips for these unique cooling devices.

In the Humidity and Air Quality section: Understanding and controlling humidity, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air cleaners, and duct cleaning.

At the end of the book are 40 specific energy- and money-saving tips that cost little or nothing to implement and can start saving you money immediately.