Like most people that move here from the north, I was jubilant over the fact that our winters would no longer be dominated by a gas furnace and HVAC heating.
Having spent my whole life like that, I totally went crazy when I moved to the south.
I moved here in the fall and other than getting the heating maintenance done on the heat pump, I had no other winter preparations. And I was totally free to enjoy the outdoors almost every single day. The winter here is full of sunshine and crystal clear skies. So I dove right in and spent that first winter doing outside activities at every possible opportunity. It was glorious. But like most everyone else, when the summer came around, I was a bit overwhelmed by the levels of the heat and humidity. So of course, I leaned heavily on the HVAC cooling to manage and stayed inside more than I should have. I went from the zone controlled HVAC of the office to the HVAC cooling in my house. And I rarely enjoyed going outside. Instead, I cranked the air conditioning and paid a big price. But I learned that there were two things that were easy to do that would make a big change in how I dealt with summer and save me money. First, I waited a bit to start with the air conditioning to let myself acclimate to the heat a bit. Second, I started covering up the window in my house to stop the direct sunlight heating that was costing me a fortune. Now, I enjoy getting outside early in the summer and I’m not paying so much for the air conditioning in my home.