Keeping your home cool in summertime can be as costly as keeping it warm in the winter.

Jordan Jackle, Media Relations and Issues Management Consultant at SaskPower has some suggestions for ways to save on electrical bills in summer.

“Close your blinds, get room darkening blinds to prevent heat from coming in, particularly on south-facing windows, that can really heat things up and make your air conditioner work that much harder during the afternoon and into the early evening,” said Jackle.

“Also don’t make more heat,” he added. “So, if you can delay chores that produce heat and moisture, things like doing the laundry, running the dishwasher, cooking, if you can move that to later in the day when it’s a little bit cooler, that’ll help out as well.”

Jackle suggests using your furnace fan to circulate cool air from your basement. If you do, however, make sure your furnace filter is clean.

“Even if you don’t have air conditioning, (you can be) using your furnace to circulate air from your cooler basement to the upstairs,” he said. “Be sure to change your furnace filter.”

“It’s something that a lot of people don’t think about in the summer, because you associate your furnace with winter and staying warm,” he noted.

“If you do have your furnace fan on, the filter is still very important, and could reduce the efficiency of the fan if it’s a little bit clogged after a winter’s worth of use,” he added.

He said that those who have central air conditioning should have their units serviced yearly by a professional technician.

He also recommends unplugging devices when leaving home for out of town.

“If you’re going away for a few days, consider unplugging some of the electronic devices in your home, switching off power bars,” he said.

“You know, one of the big things we always talk about when we’re talking about power consumption and the increased power consumption we see year to year, is the fact that there’s new technologies every year and people are just generally using more power than they once did, so you can switch that off if you’re going away on your summer vacation.”