There’s a lot to love about living in Galveston. However, one downside of living near the coast is that it can be difficult and expensive to keep your home cool. If you can find a good cooling solution, you’ll be able to overcome your cooling challenges and improve your home’s environmental friendliness. At George’s Air Conditioning, we have a lot of experience keeping coastal homes cool. Below is how high humidity affects cooling a coastal home and a few systems that we suggest to customers who are looking for the best coastal air conditioning systems.
High Humidity
While the high summer temperatures can certainly make it difficult to keep your home cool, the main challenge you must overcome in a coastal home is the high humidity levels. Since humid air feels warmer on your skin, a humid home will be uncomfortable to live in. An air conditioner removes excess humidity from the air by condensing the water vapor on the system’s cold refrigerant line. Once the water vapor turns to liquid, the excess water can drain out of your home. To keep your home comfortable, it’s important to find a system that is effective at removing humidity.
Heat Pump
Another important consideration of coastal cooling is what you’ll do on those days when the temperature drops to an uncomfortable level. While it’s important to have heating capabilities, it’s often not worth it to have a separate furnace unit that you might only use a few days a year. That’s why George’s Air Conditioning often recommends heat pumps to our customers on the coast.
In the summer, a heat pump operates the same as a conventional air conditioner. It compresses the refrigerant when it’s outside to increase the temperature of the refrigerant. This high-temperature refrigerant can shed excess heat that it collects inside your home. It reverses this process inside to cool and dehumidify your home. In the winter, though, a heat pump reverses the compression and expansion process to extract heat from the outside. Since there’s usually plenty of heat energy to be found near the coast, you can keep your home warm without spending a lot of money.
Ductless Mini-Split
If your coastal home doesn’t already have a system of ducts, then one of your best options is one or more ductless mini-split systems. These systems are miniaturized heat pumps that can both heat and cool your home. The beauty of these systems is that they are only designed to heat and cool a single room. Therefore, if you only need temperature control in the bedrooms in your home, for example, you can install a system in each bedroom while leaving the living room to be cooled by the ocean breezes. Since these systems allow for room-by-room temperature control, they work great if you use your home as a vacation rental.
Dehumidifier
It bears repeating that the main challenge you’ll face in keeping your home cool is removing the excess humidity from the air. Although most air conditioners are effective at this task, it still doesn’t hurt to have some supplemental dehumidification. George’s Air Conditioning often recommends whole-home dehumidifiers for customers whose homes seem uncomfortably sticky, whether the air conditioner is running. The dehumidifier can run even when your air conditioner is off so that your home can always maintain precise humidity levels. If there’s a specific room that has issues with humidity levels, you can opt for a single-room dehumidifier instead.
Annual Maintenance
Any air conditioner will struggle to keep your home comfortable if it isn’t properly maintained. At George’s Air Conditioning, we recommend semi-annual maintenance for your HVAC system so that you can ensure your system is ready to go for both the heating and cooling seasons. During the annual system maintenance, a technician will inspect each component of your system to ensure it’s clean and properly lubricated. Scheduling semi-annual maintenance also gives you the best chance of catching problems before they have a chance to get out of control.
Your Coastal Cooling Experts
At George’s Air Conditioning, we take pride in keeping our customers’ homes comfortable in any weather. That’s why we offer air conditioner repair, furnace maintenance, indoor air quality assessments, and commercial HVAC services. Since our founding over 20 years ago, we’ve been working hard to take care of every service call with excellence and integrity. That’s a big reason why we continually receive five-star customer reviews. To learn more about keeping your home cool this summer, contact us at George’s Air Conditioning today.
