Depending on what part of the country you live in, life would be miserable without your air conditioning. In fact, in many states and regions, life would be impossible without it. It wasn’t until the advent of mass-manufactured air conditioning for residential homes that the population mass migrations from the North to the South and West known as the Sunbelt occurred.

If you want to keep your air conditioner running effectively, efficiently, and for a long time, keep reading into the following paragraphs to learn 10 energy saving tips!

1) Climate-control using a programmable thermostat: If you can get a unit that you can program, you can set the AC to run a bit warmer when you’re not home, or cooler at night when it’s easier to chill the home. Just remember to leave things comfortable for pets.

2) Regular maintenance: Your AC unit should ideally have a hands-on checkup from a professional technician every six months, often in the spring and fall to bookend the hot season.

3) Clean out the ducts: Getting your home’s ducts cleaned regularly clears out the residue and crud that disrupt airflow and make your unit work harder.

4) Change the filter often: Depending on your home, this might be every month or just every quarter, but it has the same effect of duct cleaning.

5) Keep the unit in the shade: If you can give your outdoor unit shade, it’ll literally keep its own cool easier.

6) Protect it from wildlife: Using shrubs and bushes that are known to be deer-resistant or not favorites of local critters prevents them from nesting or doing their business on it.

7) Leave airflow around it: The tricky part about using shrubs, plants, and other things to shade your unit and protect it from wildlife is that you also need to leave appropriate airflow around it. The harder it has to work, the less effective it is and the shorter its lifespan.

8) Consider upgrades and retrofits: If your unit is starting to age a little bit, you don’t have to start thinking about getting it replaced. A good unit should run a decade when properly maintained, but there are constantly advances in air conditioning technology. These aren’t just in new units though. You get some of them retrofitted into your current system to increase its performance and lifespan.

9) Run fans and draw shade in hot rooms: Recognize what rooms are used more frequently than others. Close the curtains to keep light out, and run ceiling or floor fans to get the cooling help of the evaporative effect, which can make a room feel 8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it actually is.

10) Use dehumidifiers: The primary way that an air conditioner cools the air in your home is by removing the humidity from the air. It primarily does so by removing both the moisture and the warmth at the same time, but if you have a particularly frustrating room, like a damp basement or a bathroom, putting in a standalone dehumidifier can take the edge off that room. That way, you don’t have to blast the whole house with the AC.

Now that you know these 10 energy-saving tips for your air conditioner, use any that might apply to your home to extend the life of your unit and lower your utility bills.