As the Southwest Arizona summer prepares to sizzle, Yuma residents must do whatever’s possible to keep their A/C system running smoothly and efficiently. You might be surprised to learn that while some homeowners are planning to upgrade their existing systems or give them annual service tuneups, others are turning to landscaping to improve their systems’ performance.
Desert Landscapes of Arizona
Drive through any Yuma neighborhood and you’ll see what many refer to as a “desert landscape.” This type of style typically involves a series of cacti, such as saguaros, barrel cacti, prickly pears and similar thorny vegetation. It’s among the most popular types of landscaping in the desert Southwest part of the state. But to take full advantage of landscaping, you need to make choices that will improve the efficiency of your home’s HVAC system.
How Trees and Rocks Can Benefit Your HVAC System
The first thing you can do to help your HVAC system is to plant trees or large shrubs near your home’s windows. As they grow, these plants will help shade your home from direct sunlight. By decreasing the sunlight that enters your home, its interior will be cooler, lowering the need for you to run your HVAC system.
Rocks can be immediately beneficial, since you obviously don’t have to wait for them to grow. Landscaping with rocks in Arizona is often used in conjunction with cacti and can utilize goose-egg stones, beach stones, and Mexican beach pebbles, etc. This type of landscape can improve your HVAC system because the removal of a lawn prevents grass and debris from clogging up your outdoor condensing unit, as well as pesticides that may enter your home and lead to respiratory issues.
If you’d like more information on the use of landscaping to help your home’s cooling system, or if you have any home comfort concerns, contact the experts at Hansberger Refrigeration and Electric Company. We’ve been serving the cooling and heating needs of Yuma and the surrounding area since 1952.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Yuma, Arizona about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about landscaping and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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