Beat the Heat

Louie Ward Manager of Tallapoosa River Electric

I have lived in east central Alabama all my life. For any of you reading this who have not lived in the deep south long or at all, welcome to long, hot, humid days. We typically have between three and four months of weather that will suffocate you – that is, if you are not accustomed to it. Those of you reading this from the area, you are thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I start this month’s article in this manner because I want you to think about how you will fight off this heat. Many of us retreat into the cool air-conditioned space of our house. As the temperatures continue to climb, we tend to turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees. A simple fact to consider….in the deep south we tend to spend as much running our air conditioners as we do everything else combined. With that in mind, I want to encourage you to have a licensed technician check your HVAC system. You will need it to operate at peak efficiency to maintain the comfort level you desire. Along with that, we recommend changing the air filters once a month. Air flow is essential for the equipment to perform as it is designed.

Call our member services department for more tips on how to minimize your electric consumption during hot weather.

Another thing I want to mention is that we offer a small incentive to let us know of an electric car purchase in your household. We readily recognize in rural America, electric transportation won’t be for everyone, but for some, it will be beneficial. Here at your electric cooperative, we like the idea of more electric energy sales. I understand some utilities offer “special rates” for those purchasing electric vehicles. Often, if one reads the fine print, it isn’t as rosy as it may seem. Here at TREC, we don’t like that approach, so we are continuing our age-old tradition of offering everyone the best price we can regardless of time or use.

Hope you have a great start to your summer! I look forward to our visit next month.