As parents, we want our kids to grow into responsible homeowners who make smart choices. Teaching kids about two related aspects of home ownership – HVAC and energy efficiency – can give them valuable knowledge they’ll benefit from throughout their lives.
Here are some suggestions on how to help your kids understand what efficiency means, and how they can achieve it in practical terms in the different ways that energy is used for their home comfort.
Work Together on Efficiency-Related HVAC Tasks
Kids like to get involved, so ask them to help you with simple HVAC maintenance tasks, like dusting off the registers, inspecting and replacing the air filter, or hosing off outdoor unit. You can pique their interest by explaining how each chore you tackle relates to the system’s energy consumption, and helps make it run more efficiently.
Help Older Kids Understand the Programmable Thermostat
Older youngsters can find it difficult to understand why dialing up the thermostat isn’t an immediate solution when they feel too warm or too cold. Give them a simplified lesson on how your programmable thermostat works to save energy. Then, compare that with how costly making extreme and frequent setting changes can be.
Make Developing Good Energy Habits Fun
When they’re grown, you want your children to know how to make intelligent decisions about their energy usage. To get them in the habit of being energy conscious, give them fun rewards for completing tasks like always shutting the door when they head outside, closing their bedroom shade to limit heat gain, or running the fan to clear out moisture when they shower.
Discuss Your Household HVAC Issues
You can use events like a routine HVAC maintenance visit or a new equipment installation as an opportunity to teach your kids about energy efficiency. For example, you can discuss the role that regular maintenance plays in your HVAC system’s energy consumption, or how equipment with higher efficiency ratings can help your family save energy over time.
For more tips on teaching kids about HVAC and energy efficiency, contact your Long Island HVAC pros at Cool Power.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Hauppauge, New York and the Long Island area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 631-292-0629.