2018 Daylight Saving Time and Your Florida Air Conditioner

Daylight Saving Time arrives each spring here in Orlando when we all are required to adjust our clocks forward one hour. The time change begins this year on Sunday, March 11th, 2018 and will remain in effect until Sunday, November 4, 2018, when the clocks will be adjusted back an hour. By adjusting the clocks forward one hour during the spring and summer months, we will benefit by having more sunlight during hours that are more active for most people, such as the early evening hours. You may not realize it, but Daylight Saving Time can have an impact on your air conditioner as well.

1. Your Programmable Settings

If you are like most people, you have programmed your thermostat settings so that your air conditioner runs less frequently during the hours when you are away at work. Daylight savings time, however, can skew this by an hour. You may find that the temperature setting on the thermostat is still in a higher temperature setting when you arrive home from work, and this can create an uncomfortable situation for you during the first hour when you are home from work each evening. Therefore, you may consider adjusting the clock on your thermostat by an hour if it does not adjust automatically. This will ensure that all of your settings are up-to-date during the spring and summer months.

2. The Temperature Outdoors

Daylight saving time can have an impact on your energy bills. Essentially, daylight saving time gives you an extra hour of sunlight during the evening hours, and this means that the temperature during this time of day is warmer than it was prior to daylight savings time. Previously, this hour may have been an hour when you did not need to cool your house so significantly because you were at work. As you can see, this can have an impact on your cooling costs, so you should be prepared to pay slightly more in your cooling costs than you did previously. If you do not want to contend with higher energy bills, one idea is to adjust your programmable thermostat by a few degrees during the early evening hours.

3. A Reminder to Change the Air Filters

With your attention currently focused on your air conditioning unit, now may be a great time to change your air filters. While this is not related to daylight saving time, it may have been several weeks or longer since you last changed your air filter. Changing air filters can help your system to function more efficiently, which may be ideal after daylight saving time when your system may use more energy to keep your home cool.

Daylight Savings Time For Your Central Florida AC

We are excited to kick off another beautiful Orlando spring and summer with the start of Daylight Saving Time! If you need any help with your heating and cooling system, now is a great time to contact Energy Air to set up an appointment with our trusted and hardworking team.