Your furnace and air conditioning unit are designed to be quite sturdy, but they aren’t designed to run forever. Both your air conditioner and your furnace (along with your blower) are in the business of changing the temperature of air and moving this air throughout your home. With that much air, it’s unsurprising that dust and grime begin to build up over time. The more dust and grime you have, the harder your air conditioner, furnace, and blower will have to work to do their job. Too much dirt and they’ll stop working. In other words, if you want your air conditioner and furnace to run for a long time, you need to do a little bit of maintenance work on them. Take a look at that air conditioner. Some of the coils are blocked with gunk. It’s simply not running as efficiently as it should, which means the unit has to work harder to cool the home. If it’s overworked, it’s also more likely to break down. How can you fix that? Cleaning your external air conditioning unit is actually pretty easy.

Just stop by your local HVAC supply shop and buy some cleaning solution (one jug of it will be enough for quite a few cleanings). Go home, cut the power to your AC unit using the breaker box, then wet down the coils on your unit with a garden hose. Using gloves and safety glasses, spray on some of the cleaning solution, let it sit for a while, then spray the coils down again with a garden hose to wash away both the grime and the cleaning solution.air handling unit basic principle Wait a bit longer, then flip the power back on. how much does a new 2 ton ac unit costIt’ll look like new and run more efficiently, too.cleaning ac wall unit What other steps can you take? Make sure you change the filter in your blower on a regular basis.

Go down to your basement (or wherever your blower is located) and check the filter in your blower unit. If you’re not sure when you last changed it, it’s probably time to change it. Mark down the size of your filter, then head to your local hardware store and pick up a replacement filter. Swapping the filter is easy, but the important step is to note the lifetime of your new filter and mark on your calendar when you need to change the filter. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can clean the blower as well. The blower is a giant fan usually found next to the filter. Turn off the breaker and remove the cover on the blower unit. Most of the time, these just unplug like a normal fan. Unplug it, then use a brush to clean off the blades and a vacuum cleaner to clean the area around the blower unit. Plug it back in, put it back in place, put the cover back on, and flip the breaker again. You’ll have more efficient air flow, which means a lower energy bill. There are other regular maintenance steps well worth taking for your furnace and air conditioner, but they usually require additional equipment (like a high-powered vacuum) and can cause damage if done incorrectly, so you’re better off having an expert handle them.

The end result of these tasks is a more efficient heating and cooling system in your home. It will run less, which means a smaller energy bill for you, and it also extends the life of your air conditioner, furnace, and blower system, meaning you save long-term on replacement costs. This post is part of a yearlong series called “365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),” in which I’m revisiting the entries from my book “365 Ways to Live Cheap,” which is available at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere. Images courtesy of Brittany Lynne Photography, the proprietor of which is my “photography intern” for this project. We don't have air conditioning, and with this hot weather its easy to get out of the house to cool off in the daytime, but at night it's really uncomfortable. How can I stay cool when I'm trying to sleep when the temperature is in the 90s even at night? It is hot out there, isn't it? Where some of us are, the temps are well into the hundreds during the day, and lows at night are in the 90s.

Thankfully, you're not the first person to have this problem and there are great ways to keep cool when you're trying to get a good night's sleep. We've talked about a number of different DIY air conditioners that you can make, but they all rely on one principle: using ice from the freezer and a fan to spray cool mist through the air while you're sleeping to keep you cool. You can do this a number of ways, but the tried and true method is a simple desk or standing fan with a shallow bowl full of ice in front of it. As the fan blows and the ice melts, you'll get a fine mist of cool water in the air that will help keep you cool. Another way to get a similar effect is to spray a sheet with cold water and put it in front of an open window. If there's a breeze, let nature do the work and blow a cool mist through your room or home. Just don't wet the sheets too much.If you have a breeze or at least a window, instead of just blowing the hot air around your home, set up a through-breeze by putting a pair of box fans at opposite sides of the room, preferably with one in the window, to either draw cooler air in and push hot air out of your room, or push the hot air out of your house entirely.

Either way, the through-breeze in your room will make it easier to sleep.Lifehacker's own Jason Chen swears by his Chillow, a cooling pillow that can help cool your brain and make it easier to fall asleep, even in otherwise hot environments. The Chillow isn't the only kind of cooling pillow on the market: there are others you can find online or in department stores, but all of them work by cooling your brain – it's the same reason we all flip over to the cool side of the pillow during the night when it gets warm. This old trick won't relieve the heat all through the night, but it may help you fall asleep faster. Put your sheets into a plastic sealed bag and pop them in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes. Make sure the bag is sealed tight so you don't get any moisture in the sheets. If you leave them in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes, they'll cool down, and when it's time for bed, put the now-chilled sheets on the bed and enjoy the quality cold. Granted, your body heat will warm them after even a few minutes, so it's momentary relief at best, but it's still relief.

This old technique calls back to legends of how ancient Egyptians used to stay cool on hot nights. Simply soak a sheet or blanket large enough to cover you in cold water, then wring it dry so it's damp and cool, but not dripping wet. Then just use it as a blanket. As the water evaporates, you get the benefit of staying cool but not wet. There are a few more common variations on this theme, like the cold washcloth or ice pack on your head or wrists while you sleep, or going to bed with cool, damp (but again, not wet) socks on to keep your feet cool and you comfortable enough to fall asleep.These are just a few ways you can try to stay comfortable enough to sleep if you don't have a lot of control over where you sleep or the building you're sleeping in. If you have a vented attic or skylight, open that up to let the hot air that's risen to the top of the room out. If you have a downstairs or basement you can sleep in, it might be cooler down there and worth moving for a night or two.