Keeping your business premises cool enough during the summer months is important for several reasons.
- When your workforce is comfortable, they are more productive.
- When your customers are comfortable, they stay and shop more.
Air-conditioning does a great job of keeping everyone cool. But, it can be expensive to run… luckily, there are several ways to reduce the cost!
How To Cool Your Business Premises Without Spending A Fortune
1. Have it serviced regularly
Simply calling in someone like ambientedge.com to have your air-conditioning serviced will make a big difference to its running costs. Everything will work more efficiently, which will reduce your power bill.
2. Clean the filters every month
Take the filters out and clean them every month or so. Doing this can cut your air-conditioning bill by up to 15%!
3. Protect your air-conditioning during the winter months
Investing in a cover for the outside unit is usually a good idea. During the months when your unit is not in use it will be protected from dirt and debris. This will help to keep your system in good working condition for longer.
4. Use ceiling fans and desk fans
If it is practical to do so, install ceiling fans. Make sure they are turning counterclockwise in order to push cooler air downwards and draw warm air upwards.
Doing this allows you to set your air-conditioning a couple of degrees higher and will more than cover the cost of the electricity you use to run the fans. Use the calculation that is explained on this page to work out how much electric the fans will use.
Your air-conditioning engineer will be able to tell you how much electricity you will save by turning your particular system down by a degree or two.
This will enable you to determine whether fitting fans in your business premises is a good investment or not. Usually, it is, but you want to be sure that this will be the case for you before investing any money in fitting fans.
It may also be worth offering your workers desk fans. This could enable you to delay turning on the air-conditioning for a couple of weeks and allow you to turn it off a little earlier in the year.
5. Keep the heat out with shutters
In the areas of your business premises where it is possible to do so, install and use shutters to keep the heat out. If you have a store and you close at lunchtime, consider pulling down the shutters.
6. Only cool the rooms you are actually using
If you have a central system, find out how to switch it off in the rooms that are not used as much. However, remember to schedule someone to turn the cooling system on about 30 minutes before the room is due to be occupied.
The above are all ideas that are relatively easy to implement. So, it is worth trying a few of them!