As summer fast approaches, you probably want to find ways to beat the heat both indoors and outdoors. The last thing you want is for your own home to be hot, stuffy and uncomfortable. Here are some quick, cool and effective tips to make sure your home is well maintained throughout this sweltering summer season.

Conditioning the air-conditioner

This tip should be on the top of your home maintenance checklist for summer. Because you don’t want to bake like you are in an oven.

1. Make sure you turn on the air conditioning before summer begins in all its glory to see if it’s working properly, and to prevent that first blast of warm and dusty air.

2. Have an AC tune up done in advance by a professional home maintenance company. This helps ensure the refrigerant levels are normal, and your AC is running smoothly, which in turn prevents any hike in your electricity bills.

3. Be patient. Keep the temperature of your AC unit at around 24 degrees and allow a little bit of time for it to cool the room.

4. To keep your utility bill stable, have your AC filters cleaned up to three times per year.

Hang it out to dry

This may be the most basic tip, but it’ll be sure to save you a good amount of money. The heat can be quite a blessing if you use it to your advantage. Take the time to install a clothing line to dry your clothes outside the house, instead of using a dryer, and save on all that energy and money. This is feasible for those living in villas as well as apartments. What’s even better; let this energy efficient method earn you brownie points for being environmentally conscious.

Double up

For those living in villas, a rather frequent problem tends to be the dust and dirt that enters your home along with your guests. An effective tip to prevent that is to keep two doormats outside the entrance instead of one. Have one course mat on the outside and one soft mat on the inside to form a formidable double barrier to keep the dust and dirt at bay.

Cool tip

Reduce energy within the home by replacing standard or halogen light bulbs with energy saving LED light bulbs which will not only reduce energy and cost but will also reduce heat radiated from halogen light bulbs which will make your home a cooler place.

(Written by: Matthew Rawlinson, senior facilities manager at MPLUS+ home and property maintenance)