Humanity has always needed energy for work and production. For most of history, this energy came from human and animal labor, such as blacksmiths, artisans, and horse-drawn carriages or oxen working the farm fields. This changed with the Industrial Revolution and its boom in technology, production, and energy needs. Steam power and machines became dominant, and pressurized steam allowed turbines to be rotated for energy. Later in the 1800s, electricity was harnessed, adding even more power and enabling more inventions. In the 20th centuries, fossil fuel-powered power plants could be found across the industrialized world, along with nuclear power.
Now in the 21st century, there has been some increasing concern about the sheer pollution that traditional power plants create, such as emissions into the air. To counter-act this and take advantage of new technology, engineers have pioneered clean energy sources such as solar power, and solar companies can install these panels right onto houses and commercial buildings alike for all their electric needs. This is good news for homeowners, who can have such arrays installed right on their roofs for limitless power in sunny areas. American homes use a lot of power for their air conditioning, heat pumps, furnaces, and more, and this can get expensive in some cases. A typical American house uses just over 55% of its power on heating and cooling alone, and a home energy audit may show some inefficiency in the hardware. Dirty, damaged, or outdated air conditioning or heating hardware will cost a lot of money over time. Homeowners may have their utilities fixed and repaired by hiring local air conditioning services, as well as hire solar companies to put solar panels on the roof. Sunny states such as California, Texas, New Mexico, and others are especially suited for this.
Saving Electricity
A homeowner can take a few different routes to lower or even eliminate their electric bill, and one of them is to become independent from the public electric grid entirely. This doesn’t mean adopting an Amish lifestyle (nothing against the Amish); rather, a homeowner can hire local solar companies to install the right hardware to collect energy from the sun. Contractors will first inspect the house and build the brackets to support those panels, then install the panels and get everything connected with wires. City and power plant officials will inspect the property and approve it for solar panel use. At that point, the home will be disconnected from the energy grid and use only its own solar energy from those panels. This allows the solar panels to pay themselves off over time, and a homeowner may expect many savings in the long run. Especially since solar technology has become much more advanced and economically viable in the last decade.
Hiring solar companies to set up those panels is a fine idea, but a homeowner should also make sure that their utilities are in good shape, too. A dirty, clogged, or damaged HVAC system will waste a lot of electricity over time, solar panels or not, and make for inconsistent and uncomfortable climate control. What might go wrong? For one thing, rats and squirrels might break in and build air-blocking nests in the air ducts, or the blower fans deep in the system may get coated with grime that lowers their output. Or, the outdoor AC unit may get choked with pollen and dust. All of this filth disrupts air flow and forces the system to work overtime to meet its heating or cooling quotas, using up a lot of expensive electricity the entire time. In other cases, the system is very old and worn out, such as exhausted blower fans, defective furnaces, or damaged air ducts that leak air constantly.
Repair services can and should be hired to fix this. Expert repair professionals can reach many parts of the system that the homeowner cannot, and they can either clean off, repair, or even replace the blower fans to restore full air flow. They may also remove animal nests from the air ducts and repair those ducts if need be, and they can clean out the outdoor AC unit, too, or fix the furnace’s busted components. Very old systems might be overhauled entirely, which saves money in the long run.
