If only I had Elsa's powers during the hot, hot, hot summer months! As soon as a prospective resident walks into my community office and asks if our apartment homes come with central air conditioning, I know immediately that I am meeting someone who is moving from the north. While an air conditioner might be a luxury in places like Seattle and New York, here in Texas it is as essential as indoor plumbing! A poll by Apartments.com found that the #1 most searched for amenity in apartments is central air conditioning. Here in the southern half of the country you would have to search high and low to find an apartment community that didn't have central air conditioning standard in their homes.  

Dallas is a wonderful place to live from September to May, but, ugh, those summer months! When the mercury starts to inch towards 100 degrees you will be hard-pressed to find me anywhere outside. An air conditioner-cooled space becomes my best friend, and, as evidenced by the amount of service calls we get during the summer months, my fellow southerners are as equally enamored of their cools homes as I am. So, what does your friendly Camden maintenance professional want you to know about your air conditioner? I asked some of our fabulous Community Maintenance Supervisors to share some words of wisdom just in time for the Texas summer.   First and foremost, your air conditioner is not a magic box that will instantly transform your 3rd floor, west-facing apartment into a scene from Frozen at the flip of a switch on a 110 degree day. A general rule of thumb is to expect around a 20-25 degree temperature difference between the inside and outside air temperature. If your apartment is tucked away in a shady corner on the first floor, you might be able to always feel a chill even on the hottest day. For the rest of us, it is just not realistic to expect your apartment to get so cold that you need a jacket indoors on a hot summer day.   Ceiling fans can provide an enormous degree of comfort inside your home, but they do not cool empty rooms. Fans work by generating a wind chill effect that cools skin, but not necessarily the air temperature. To save money on your electric bill, you should turn your fans off when you leave a room.   Speaking of saving money on your electric bill, there is a great deal of debate about whether or not to leave an air conditioner running when you are away from your apartment home or if you should turn it off each time you leave for work. It does seem wasteful to cool an empty home, but it takes a lot of time and effort to cool down a hot apartment. If you have a programmable thermostat, the best option is to run the air conditioner about 10 degrees warmer than you normally would and then set it to start cooling about an hour before you expect to arrive home. If your thermostat is not programmable, you can still raise the temperature while you are gone just expect it to take a bit of time for your home to cool down.   Finally, there are many simple things you can do to reduce the amount of heat inside of your home. Keep your blinds and windows closed during the day and consider investing in some energy-efficient thermal curtains. Change your air conditioner filters on a regular basis. You can pick some up in your community office or schedule a work order online and we will take care of it for you. Remember that those fancy, expensive allergy-reducing filters can restrict air flow making your air conditioner less efficient. Cooking is a major source of heat. Summer is a perfect time to give your stove a break and incorporate some cold meals into your dinner routine.   Camden is here for you should you ever have an air conditioner emergency, even on the weekends. Please feel free to  give us a call if you feel like something isn’t right or if your apartment is not cooling this summer. We want you to enjoy Living Excellence even when it is blistering hot outside. When it’s so hot that even being indoors is uncomfortable, that is the perfect time to enjoy our beautiful resort-style pools! Happy Summer!