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Keeping Your Home Cool
There are several rebates and incentives available from Burbank Water and Power designed to help residents of Burbank keep their homes cool in the summer. Protecting the environment gives even more motivation for everyone to look around their homes and take steps to be efficient in how we use our resources.
To help residents of Burbank take advantage of the programs available from Burbank Water and Power we have laid out a general plan for keeping your home cool. Inserted throughout the plan are various BWP programs available to you.
Summary of BWP Programs
| Prevent Heat from Entering Your Home: Preventing heat from coming into your home saves on the cost of running energy expensive air conditioners. |
Landscaping
To help you keep your home cool use smart landscaping. Landscape Classes are offered to help you design your landscaping to shade your home and place plants where they can absorb the heat. Free Shade Trees from BWP can block the heat from the sun during the summer to cool your home. The trees also drop their leaves in winter to allow the sun to heat your home.
Insulation
When the sun shines on your home the heat goes through your roof and walls. Insulation helps resist the heat from coming into the living space. Insulation rebates help with the cost to add insulation in the attic. Wall insulation could be added to outside walls when remodeling.
Solar Attic Fans
Attic fans help to remove hot air from your attic and ideally replace it with cool air from the shady part of the house through an attic vent. This helps prevent the heat from going through the insulation over time and into your home through the ceilings. A great option is a Solar Attic Fan rebate so the energy to run the fan comes from the sun.
Whole House Fan
A Whole House Fan is a large fan installed centrally in your home. The fan is used when heat is trapped in your home and the temperature outside is cool. The whole house fan is designed to bring in outside cool air into your home and flush the air through the attic very quickly. This also forces the hot air trapped in the attic to the outside. Heat trapped in the fabric of your furniture, draperies, and other furnishings is also forced outside leaving your home cool and comfortable in just a few minutes.
Windows and Doors
New Windows and doors prevent heat from transferring to the inside of the house. The Windows and Doors rebate can help you pay the cost of installing high efficient Energy Star® windows and doors. Energy Star windows and doors do a better job of keeping the heat out of your home.
| Minimizing Run Time on Air Conditioning: Air conditioners will turn on and off automatically to keep the temperature in your home at the temperature set at the thermostat. The less the air conditioner has to turn on to keep your house cool the less energy it uses. |
Air Conditioners and Ducts
Once heat is in the home, air conditioners are designed to move the heat back outside but they use a lot of electricity to do this job. Using the BWP A/C Tune Up program will make sure your air conditioner runs at peak performance. The program also helps repair ducts. Ducts are the tubing that carries the air through the air conditioning system. Ducts may develop holes, kinks, or separations allowing cool air to be lost in the attic or walls.
Need to Replace Air Conditioner?
An air conditioner is rated based on how well it can remove heat from a home and the amount of electricity it uses to do this job. The rating is called SEER. Replacing an air conditioner with a higher SEER rating is more expensive but you can offset the cost with a Central Air Conditioner rebate. Energy Star® rated room air conditioners use less energy and the Room Air Conditioner rebate helps with any added cost.
Ceiling Fans
Use an Energy Star® rated ceiling fan with your air conditioner. By increasing air circulation, you can actually turn up your AC thermostat a few degrees and still be very comfortable. The Ceiling Fan rebate provides funds for up to three Energy Star® ceiling fans.
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