5 March 2025
Air Conditioner Energy Saving Tips
- Using Your Air Conditioner Efficiently
- Enable heat to escape by first ventilating the room after returning home
- Use an electric fan or an air circulator with your air conditioner
- Create airflow to lower the apparent temperature [Apparent temperature]
- Clean air filters once every two weeks [Filter cleaning]
- Using the Remote Controller Effectively
- Set airflow to AUTO to prevent wasting electricity [Airflow setting]
- Increase airflow before lowering the temperature setting [Airflow setting]
- Don’t turn unit ON and OFF to adjust room temperature [Continuous operation]
- Eliminate uneven temperatures and efficiently cool the room [Airflow direction setting/convection]
- Checking the Area Surrounding the Outdoor Unit
- Ensure the air outlet of the outdoor unit remains unobstructed [Air outlet of outdoor unit]
- Install outdoor units in the shade or use a sunshade to protect from direct sunlight [Sunshade for the outdoor unit]
- Taking Measures to Conserve Energy at Home
- Shield the room from the heat of the sun. [Blocking solar heat: Indoors]
- Shield the room from the heat of the sun. [Blocking solar heat: Outdoors]
- Be proactive in finding ways to stay cool [Ideas to stay cool]
Using Your Air Conditioner Efficiently
Enable heat to escape by first ventilating the room after returning home.
Instead of immediately running the AC after returning home to a room hotter on the inside than the outside, first open a window to ventilate. Allowing the suffocating hot air to escape before turning ON the air conditioner quickly and more efficiently cools down the room with less electricity.
To accelerate the release of heat, open two windows for ventilation, rather than just one, to create an air passage for the air to travel. Also, opening two windows that are diagonally across from each other will further increase efficiency.
Opening windows diagonally across from each other is more efficient.
Use an electric fan or an air circulator with your air conditioner.
When it’s hot and the cold air is not reaching you, don’t lower the AC temperature setting. Use an electric fan or air circulator instead to quickly send the cool air from the air conditioner over a greater distance.
To direct cold air over a wider area, place an electric fan facing away from the airflow toward the direction where you want to send the cold air.
Create airflow to lower the apparent temperature [Apparent temperature]
A breeze, even when it’s the same temperature as the surrounding air, makes people feel cooler. This effect is called apparent temperature.
So, before lowering the temperature setting, try sending strong airflow since that will be more effective in reducing your electricity bill. Effectiveness can also be maximized by using an electric fan at low speed with your air conditioner to blow air toward you.
However, some people may feel cold with a nearby fan blowing air toward them, even when the fan is at low speed. For this reason, people bothered by strong airflow or use a fan in the bedroom may want to redirect airflow at a wall or ceiling and let it bounce off as a gentle breeze.
Clean air filters once every two weeks [Filter cleaning]
An air conditioner cools a room by drawing in warm air, cooling it, and blowing cold air back into the room.
When the air filters inside the air conditioner become clogged, the amount of intake air decreases, reducing cooling capacity, causing the air conditioner to consume more electricity.
This is why it’s good to frequently clean the air filters, at least once every two weeks.
To remove dirt and debris from the filters, wash them with water or vacuum them. For especially dirty filters, wash them with lukewarm water mixed with a neutral detergent and dry them in a place away from direct sunlight.
Not only is it important to clean the filters, but it’s also important to clean the cooling fins (heat exchanger) behind them.
Before the summer air conditioning season starts, be sure to check the cooling fins for dirt, and if they are noticeably dirty, consult a service professional.
Using the Remote Controller Effectively
Set airflow to AUTO to prevent wasting electricity [Airflow setting]
Some people who worry about their electricity bills prefer to manually set operation at gentle or weak airflow when cooling, but we recommend setting airflow to AUTO.
This allows the air conditioner to adjust airflow to ensure that the room is first cooled down as efficiently and comfortably as possible at maximum airflow before reducing the fan speed to gentle airflow.
Especially after just being turned ON, air conditioners use a great deal of electricity when cooling a room at maximum operation, but gentle airflow cannot easily cool a hot room, so strong airflow is actually recommended. If you use gentle airflow to run the air conditioner, it will take longer to cool the room, which will result in more electricity being used.
Increase airflow before lowering the temperature setting [Airflow setting]
When your feel hot, before lowering the temperature setting, try lowering the apparent temperature by directing the airflow toward you or increasing airflow.
These changes can help you feel cooler even when the air conditioner is at the same temperature setting.
Likewise, an electric fan can have the same effect by providing your body with a moderate breeze. Most of the electricity consumed by an air conditioner is used to lower air temperature. While strong airflow will slightly increase power consumption, the amount of power is considerably smaller than the power consumed when the temperature setting is lowered.
Don’t turn unit ON and OFF to adjust room temperature [Continuous operation]
An air conditioner uses considerable energy when having to rapidly cool a room. Once cooled to the proper temperature setting, much less energy is needed to maintain temperature compared to when the room is being rapidly cooled.
To save energy, you should resist the temptation of repeatedly turning the unit ON and OFF: for example, “turning the air conditioner OFF when the room gets cold, then turning it ON again when it gets hot,” or “turning the air conditioner OFF when you are only going out for a short time.” Doing these things will end up using more electricity by having to rapidly cool the room more frequently, so leave the operation to the air conditioner’s temperature control function.
Eliminate uneven temperatures and efficiently cool the room [Airflow direction setting/convection]
Air conditioners draw in the warm air of the room and blow out cold air. The cold air tends to collect near the floor.
When there are temperature variations in the room where the upper part of the room is hot and the lower part is cold, the air conditioner may misinterpret the uneven temperatures to mean that the room has yet to reach the proper temperature setting, and it will waste electricity to excessively cool the room.
To prevent uneven temperatures, adjust the airflow direction, either upwardly or horizontally, so that cold air circulates from top to bottom. Using a fan in tandem with the air conditioner is effective for mixing the indoor air. Also, if you have an air purifier, it is effective to use it at strong airflow.
Checking the Area Surrounding the Outdoor Unit
Ensure the air outlet of the outdoor unit remains unobstructed [Air outlet of outdoor unit]
During operation, the outdoor unit constantly radiates heat as it dissipates the indoor heat outside of the room. For this reason, be careful not to place anything near or in the vicinity of the air outlet of the outdoor unit or cover it.
While hot air exiting the air outlet can be easily observed when you pass by the outdoor unit, a blocked air outlet is more difficult to spot. However, confirming that the air outlet is unobstructed is extremely important since the emitted hot air will be drawn back into the outdoor unit to significantly reduce cooling efficiency.
For this reason, be sure to provide sufficient spacing in front of the outdoor unit to enable good ventilation and smooth air circulation.
Commercially available outdoor unit covers can impede heat dissipation and use more electricity. We recommend removing covers whenever possible while using the air conditioner.
Install outdoor units in the shade or use a sunshade to protect from direct sunlight [Sunshade for the outdoor unit]
The outdoor unit of an air conditioner uses substantial electricity when dissipating indoor heat outside of the room.
In summer, when the outdoor unit is exposed to direct or reflected sunlight from the ground, the temperature around the unit can become very high, reducing its efficiency in dissipating heat and requiring it to use more electricity.
While outdoor units are designed to be installed in locations exposed to direct sunlight, some methods of conserving energy include installing them in a shady place, creating shade for them by planting trees, or leaning a sunshade blind about one meter away from the outdoor unit.
However, be careful not to enclose the outdoor unit with boards or obstruct the air outlet when leaning a sunshade blind near the outdoor unit.
Taking Measures to Conserve Energy at Home
Shield the room from the heat of the sun. [Blocking solar heat: Indoors]
One way of efficiently cooling a room is to keep the indoor temperature from rising by shielding the room from the sun’s heat.
Curtains and window blinds are useful for blocking out sunlight and preventing heat from coming through the windows.
Applying a protective film to the window glass to reduce heat is also effective.
When selecting curtains or window blinds, white is a better color to use since it reflects light and infrared rays. Dark colors, such as black, tend to absorb the sun’s heat and make the room hotter.”
Shield the room from the heat of the sun. [Blocking solar heat: Outdoors]
To prevent the room temperature from rising, it is important to shield the room from the heat of the sun by preventing it from entering the room as much as possible. Also, blocking the sun’s heat from the outside is more effective than blocking it from the inside.
A green curtain can be created by using climbing plants such as morning glories, luffas, and bitter melons or putting up a bamboo blind to block the sunlight outside your windows. We especially recommend using plants since they not only block the sunlight, but they also make the room cooler by absorbing the heat of evaporation when water evaporates from the leaves. A cool breeze passing through the leaves helps keep the room temperature from rising, and the plants also provide refreshing scenery.
Be proactive in finding ways to stay cool [Ideas to stay cool]
Watering your yard in the mornings and evenings when the sun is low in the sky, especially around sunset, helps you feel cooler because the evaporating water removes heat from the ground.
On days when there is wind, open the windows and let a breeze inside by creating a path for it to pass through the house. This will keep air from getting trapped inside the room, and the breeze will make it feel surprisingly cooler by lowering the apparent temperature.
Also, hanging wet sheets outside a window where wind enters will enable the sheets to absorb the heat of evaporation while drying and enable you to enjoy a cool, pleasant breeze. This is especially effective on sunny days.”
