Summer Air Conditioning: How To Save Your Business Money

As summer rolls around, temperatures heat up and offices become warmer than ever. Ensuring you create a comfortable and pleasant environment for your staff is incredibly important, not just for their wellbeing but also for productivity and desire to be in the office. Since air conditioning is now a standard in most offices, they can quickly become dependable for supplying a cold blast of air when outdoor temperatures soar. However, despite the want for this, running an air conditioning system consistently for months can be costly. 

So, with warmer weather on the way, we thought it a good idea to delve into the energy consumption of air conditioning units and how best to use these in summer to save your business money. Helping you avoid high business energy costs.

How expensive are air conditioners to run? 

Since there are a range of sizes and styles of air conditioners, the costs of running air conditioning will vary. However, some insights into this have indicated that this could be upwards of 43p an hour. Plus, with the current cost of energy, this could be even more. 

Running this continuously throughout the working day could add almost £100 to your energy bill each month.

The optimal temperature for offices 

While it may be incredibly warm outside and tempting to blast the office with cold air for several hours each day, the cost of this may be enough for businesses to reconsider. 

But, how can you keep your office environment comfortable during such extreme summer heat? 

Many of us will be all too familiar with the constant air conditioning debate at work. Turn it on or turn it off? Turn it up or turn it down? The truth is, it’s incredibly difficult to keep everyone happy. In fact different types of people prefer to be warm at work while others, cold. Plus, studies have shown that the temperature in working places does in fact impact productivity. 

While there is currently no legal maximum temperature for working environments, however long over-due this may be, workplaces should ensure that the environment is ‘responsible’. Where temperatures do become unbearable, employers have a responsibility to offer staff regular breaks and a sufficient supply of free water.

Some have suggested that keeping a constant and regulated temperature is the best solution, with many assuming the optimal working temperature to be somewhere between 22-24°C.

Avoiding big bills when using air conditioning

Keeping your air conditioning on in summer whilst trying to manage your energy bills may seem like a task. Especially as teams fight over the temperature. With these tips, however, you can aim to keep your energy bills as low as possible, whilst still providing air conditioning to your employees. 

• Do not run the air conditioning system on an extremely low temperature 
• Turn off the air conditioning when it is not necessary 
• Make sure your AC unit is correctly installed
• Have the unit maintained and serviced regularly, especially before summer starts
• Ensure the room you are cooling isn’t subject to a large amount of direct sunlight as this will produce more work for the AC unit.

To keep a closer eye on your energy consumption and to monitor how different appliances may be affecting your energy bills, consider a business smart meter. For more information about this and the roll out scheme, do not hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team.