| Good Monday morning from Tulsa — |
| September is here, but triple-digit afternoons aren't done with us yet. Today's high is pushing 102°F, which means your system is still working as hard as it did in July. Three things this week: one number that should make you feel better about your utility bill, one equipment option worth knowing, and one reminder about what's coming after the heat breaks. |
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By the numbers
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12 ¢/kWh
Tulsa residential electricity rate
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38%
Below the national average electricity rate
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$277,000
Tulsa metro median home price, May 2026
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1
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Tulsa Pays 12 Cents a Kilowatt-Hour — Here's Why That Matters |
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2
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Mini Splits Are Getting Cheaper — What That Means If You Have a Stubborn Room |
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3
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The Stretch Between Cooling Season and Heating Season Is Shorter Than It Feels |
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4
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Tulsa Homes Are Selling Fast — Your HVAC System Is Part of That Story |
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The lead · RATE WATCH
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Tulsa Pays 12 Cents a Kilowatt-Hour — Here's Why That Matters
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| Tulsa's residential electricity rate sits at about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, roughly 38% below the national average, according to EnergySage data from May 2026. |
| That gap is real money. Running your AC hard through an Oklahoma summer stings, but homeowners in most other states are paying more per hour of cooling for the same heat. The catch: a low rate doesn't make an inefficient or undersized system free to run — it just means an efficient one is an even better deal here than it would be elsewhere. |
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Why it matters: If you've been putting off a tune-up or an efficiency upgrade because 'electricity is cheap here anyway,' this is actually the number that argues the other direction — every efficiency point you gain costs less to earn in Tulsa than almost anywhere else.
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Read at EnergySage, May 2026 →
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EQUIPMENT OPTION
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Mini Splits Are Getting Cheaper — What That Means If You Have a Stubborn Room
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| Keystone just added a single-zone mini split line built around lower upfront cost, giving homeowners a more accessible entry point for cooling one problem room without extending ductwork. |
| Mini splits have been around for years, but the price has kept a lot of people from using them for a sunroom, a converted garage, or a home office that never quite gets comfortable. A lower-cost single-zone option means that calculation changes — not free, but closer to realistic for a targeted fix. Worth knowing before you assume a mini split is out of reach. |
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Why it matters: If you have one room your central system can't keep up with, ask about single-zone mini splits the next time we're out — the price conversation may go differently than you'd expect.
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Read at ACHR News, September 4, 2026 →
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FALL PREP
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The Stretch Between Cooling Season and Heating Season Is Shorter Than It Feels
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| Once this heat breaks, there's a narrow window — usually four to six weeks in Tulsa — before nights get cold enough that you'll want your furnace ready to go. |
| That window is the best time to schedule a heating checkup, before the first cold snap sends everyone calling at once. A furnace that sat all summer can have a dirty flame sensor, a clogged filter, or a pilot issue that won't show up until you actually need heat. Finding it in October is a lot less stressful than finding it at 6 a.m. on a 28-degree November morning. |
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Why it matters: Booking a fall heating tune-up now — while schedules are still open — means you're not waiting on a cold day.
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Read at Family Handyman, September 3, 2026 →
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HOME VALUE
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Tulsa Homes Are Selling Fast — Your HVAC System Is Part of That Story
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| The Tulsa metro reported a median home price of $277,000 in May 2026, up 6.5% year-over-year, with homes selling in a median of 18 days. |
| In a market where buyers move that fast, a system with documented maintenance history — or a red flag on an inspection report — can shift a negotiation quickly. Buyers and their inspectors look hard at the HVAC. A unit with a recent tune-up, a clean filter, and service records in hand gives you one less thing to explain at the table. |
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Why it matters: Maintenance records are cheap to build and expensive to be without when a buyer's inspector is standing in your mechanical room.
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Read at Tulsa Market Data, May 2026 →
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Quick hits
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• Thinking about financing a new system? GoodLeap's HVAC lease program offers predictable monthly payments and maintenance coverage with a clear path to ownership — no surprise buyout at the end. Worth comparing against a traditional loan if you're shopping this fall. →
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• Research from ACHR News finds that traditional 'cooling degree day' calculations — the models utilities and engineers use to estimate your home's energy demand — may undercount real-world conditions, which could mean efficiency estimates for your region are less accurate than advertised. →
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Tip of the week
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Check your outdoor unit before fall gets here
Walk out and look at your condenser — the big unit outside. After a summer of hard work, the fins on the outside can get packed with cottonwood, grass clippings, and dust. A gentle rinse with a garden hose (spray from the inside out if you can reach) knocks most of it loose. Don't use a pressure washer; the fins bend easily. A clean condenser going into the off-season is a cleaner start when cooling season returns next spring.
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How was this issue?
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Until next week,
Ray, owner
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| P.S. If your system ran hard this summer and you're not sure what shape it's in, we're scheduling fall tune-ups now — fourteen trucks, and we'd rather find a problem in October than February. |