Tips
Beat the Heat: Your Energy Bill Survival Guide
SRP sends the bill. Phoenix summer does the damage. June through August, the average Scottsdale home pays somewhere between $300 and $400 a month just for electricity, and your AC is carrying most of that load.
The thing is, a lot of that cost isn't because your equipment is old or failing. It's a few quiet killers most homeowners never catch until they're already staring at the bill.
A Dirty Filter Is Costing You More Than You Think
In Scottsdale, filters clog fast. Between the caliche dust, haboob season, and an AC running nonstop from May through September, your filter can go from clean to choked in a matter of weeks. When airflow gets restricted, your system runs longer to hit the same temperature. The compressor works harder. Runtime goes up. So does the bill.
This one's a five-minute fix. Pull your filter out right now and hold it up to the light. If you can't see through the dust, change it tonight. It's the cheapest thing you can do for your cooling costs this summer.
Your Thermostat Setting When Nobody's Home
A lot of homeowners keep the house at 72 or 73 all day. Makes sense when you're home in the afternoon. When you're out, you're spending real money to cool empty rooms.
For an unoccupied house, 80 to 85 degrees is the sweet spot. When you're home, 76 to 78 keeps most people comfortable without running the system into the ground during the hottest part of the day.
If you're on SRP's EZ-3 time-of-use plan, the math matters even more. Running your AC hard during your peak time (3-6pm or 4-7pm) on weekdays costs you significantly more per kilowatt-hour than running it overnight or early morning. Pre-cooling your house before 3 p.m. and backing off during that window is one of the most effective tricks on the SRP rate schedule. APS customers on time-of-use plans face the same pattern. Worth checking what plan you're actually on.
The Ductwork Problem Nobody Talks About
Your AC cools air, pushes it through ducts in the attic, and delivers it to your living room. Simple enough. Here's the catch: Phoenix attics regularly hit 150 degrees in summer. If your ductwork has gaps, cracks, or loose joints, a chunk of that cooled air bleeds out into a superheated attic before it ever reaches you.
You're paying to cool a space you never use.
Duct leakage rates in Arizona homes commonly fall between 20 and 40 percent. That means on a bad system, for every dollar you spend running your AC, you could be losing nearly a third of it to attic air. The thermostat keeps calling for cooling. The system keeps running. The bill keeps climbing. And the rooms still feel warm by 4 p.m. because they are.
Sealing ducts isn't glamorous work. But in this climate, it's one of the best returns on any home improvement you'll find.
The Fix That Usually Pays for Itself Before Summer Ends
A duct inspection costs less than one month's summer electric bill. If we find leaks, we'll show you exactly what they're costing you. On leaky systems, reduced runtime often offsets the cost of sealing work within a season — though how quickly depends on how much leakage we're actually dealing with. If your unit is more than a decade old, our rundown of the most energy-efficient AC units for Arizona homes is worth a read before you sink another summer's worth of bills into an old system.
An energy efficiency check also covers refrigerant levels, airflow, coil condition, and thermostat calibration. These aren't flashy fixes. They're the difference between a system that runs efficiently and one that runs constantly, struggles to keep up, and still hands you a $400 bill.
- Filter condition and airflow check
- Duct inspection for leaks and disconnected sections
- Refrigerant level verification
- Thermostat calibration
- Coil and drain inspection
We'll tell you straight what we find. If something needs fixing, we'll explain what it costs and what it saves. If it doesn't, we'll tell you that too.
Schedule Your Energy Efficiency Check
Give us a call at (480) 272-1317. We serve Scottsdale, Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Arcadia, Fountain Hills, Desert Ridge, and Tempe. Licensed and bonded, ROC #362677.
Spots fill up fast once June hits and everyone's AC is working overtime. If you want to get ahead of the summer bills, now is the right time to call.
One Thing You Can Do Right Now
Go check your filter. If it's clogged, swap it out — but also look at what you're replacing it with. In Scottsdale, a MERV 8 filter is the right call: it catches the dust and caliche without strangling airflow the way higher-rated filters can. A MERV 11 or 13 might look better on the box, but in a climate where your system runs hard all summer, restricted airflow will cost you more than the extra filtration is worth.
Change the filter. That's the whole tip.