Keeping Your Cool

With the heat of summer bearing down, consumers want to keep their cool without losing their cold hard cash. The Federal Trade Commission is offering tips to consumers on keeping their energy costs lower in “Cooling Your Home: Don’t Sweat It.”

The FTC advises doing an energy audit to help detect waste and gauge efficiency in a cooling system and making sure new air conditioning systems are correctly sized. Other tips include:

• Use the black and yellow EnergyGuide labels to compare the energy efficiency of models when buying a new system.
  
  
• Be wary of devices, gadgets, and energy-saving products that promise drastic reductions in home cooling costs or extreme energy savings.
  
  
• Have your central air conditioning system serviced each spring.
  
  
• Prune back shrubs and remove debris, like grass and leaves, that may block airflow to your air conditioner.

The new FTC guide, with more tips for saving, is available online at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt091.htm.

The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.