Divide your home up into different temperature controlled areas, especially if you have CH/A.
I posted about this on another thread (discussing cooking) last month, and if your floor plan allows it, it could be another frugal method of saving energy in your home.
We’re in SW Oklahoma where it’s hot during the summer. A few of years ago, we decided to quit trying to cool the kitchen. We prepare nearly all of our meals in our kitchen (except when I cook on the wood grill out in the backyard), including the ones that we take to the shop for our lunch. In the hot part of summer, preparing meals daily created a lot of heat that we in turn had to spend money to cool back down with the AC. Add to that the gas range pilot lights, the dishwasher heating element, the compressors on two refrigerators and a freezer, the gas water heater, the coffee pot that’s on every morning, and the clothes dryer (only one or two days a week). All of these appliances are in the same kitchen and adjoining utility room area.
We installed a clear plastic curtain between our kitchen and the rest of the house (arched doorway without a door), and disabled the AC cooling in the kitchen. I got the idea from a warehouse that I visited that use the plastic strips hanging in some of their doorways to control air flow between two temperature controlled areas. Our house happened to have a floor plan that made it work for us with one small curtain. The clear curtain allows light to pass through, and you can see through it well enough to avoid colliding with another person. Now we don’t care how hot it gets in the kitchen, we’re still cool in the rest of the house. The fridges and freezer may run a little more this way, but we can see a huge savings in our summer energy use. Preparing the evening meal gets a little warm, so when it gets too hot in the kitchen, simply step behind the curtain for a bit.
CD in Oklahoma