ENERGY-EFFICIENT HOME COOLING

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From Home Energy How-To , a Popular Science book by A.J. Hand, copyright 1977 by the author and reprinted with the permission of Harper 8 Row Publishers, Inc. Available in hard cover ($9.95) from any good bookstore.

"In a recent four-year period," says A.J. Hand, a former how-to editor at Popular Science magazine, "the number of U.S. homes with central air conditioning tripled. For much of the country—though—there are cheaper, more energy-efficient ways to keep cool."

And in the "Home Cooling" chapter (reprinted here in its entirety) of A.J.'s book, Home Energy How-to, you'll find detailed explanations of some of those ways to beat the heat, cut costs, and reduce energy use—all at the same time!—this coming summer.

Americans use more electricity just to run their air conditioners than is produced in all of China. And, while not so many years ago we all got along fine without air conditioning, today most Americans consider it a necessity rather than the luxury it is. Luxury or necessity—however you classify air conditioning—the fact remains that it consumes a lot of electricity. And it's an area of energy use that's in great need of conservation measures.

The air conditioner manufacturers realize this, and they're doing everything they can to make more efficient products. You can do your part too. First of all, don't buy or use an air conditioner unless you really need one. There are cheaper, less energy-consumptive ways of keeping cool, which we'll discuss later In this article. By all means try them before you turn to air conditioning. Even if they don't solve your cooling problems entirely, they'll still take some of the load off any air conditioner you decide to use later . . . saving energy and money all the while.

RATING ENERGY EFFICIENCY

If you decide you really need an air conditioner, think small, because refrigerating an entire house Is wasteful. Small window units can cool one or two rooms to which you can retreat when the rest of the house gets uncomfortable. And while you're thinking small, think "efficient".

The efficiency of an air conditioner is expressed by a number called the Electrical Efficiency Rating (EER). The EER is simply the cooling capacity of the unit in Btu's, divided by the unit's wattage. All air conditioners sold today must have the EER labeled on the machine. But if you buy a used unit with no EER label, remember that you can compute the rating yourself simply by dividing Btu's by watts.