Southern CA Edison says to keep your thermostat set at 78 during the hot summer months to reduce energy costs. We normally keep it between 80-81 degrees, even when it's 100 degrees outside. How does setting it lower lower our electric bill?
I use an air conditioner and fan during the summer time. I have a Lasko fan that I use during warm days. And during really hot days. I run the fan and the AC. And at night, I run the fan. Fan air and AC air work better. I don't really use the thermostat during the summer. I keep it at an even level. Where the house isn't warm or cold. Because I rely mostly on an AC and fan in the Summer like most people.
I also use a fan along with the air conditioner. I keep my thermostat at 68-70 durning the summer. If there is no humidity and a breeze I turn it off and open the windows. Humidity effects my allergies so turningnup thermostat above 70 creates problems for me. Durning the summer I do hang out my clothes instead of using the dryerbto save energy costs.
Here in South Africa we get temps of around 34 degrees Celsius (93 farenheit). At work during the day we set the air-conditioner to fan, once it starts to get hot we switch it to low air-conditioning (not sure what the temp is) . During the night I don't use a fan or air-condition but rather sleep with the windows open.
Setting it lower isn't going to lower your bill any. The recommendation of setting it at 78 to lower your bill, though, is for people who are tempted to set it at 76 or 72 or whatever. Or if they're constantly turning it on instead of setting it at a regular temperature and leaving it. If you're fine being at 80-81, then that's better for your bill, no doubt
During a normal summertime. I usually keep my thermostat set at about 73, more or less, but with this past summer, being so extremely hot with some days exceeding 100° I have set it at about 67, just to cool down and function in the heat. At times, making it hard to cool down. This summer will go down in history as being one of the hottest on record.
We have ours set at 73 during the summer. We don't touch it at all or move it up and down. That is a comfortable temp for our family. If for any reasons we try to set it lower such as 69, it freezes the AC and then we have to let it thaw.
Our thermostat is set at 75 degrees. That seems to work for us. I don't live very far from the ocean so it doesn't get unbearably hot where I live. We also have a ceiling fan which we use to circulate the air.bb
I live in central England and my heating is turned off during the summer. It was only two days ago I turned it on for a few hours as it is starting to get cooler here. I am certainly not looking forward to the winter though as last year it was too cold for me!
During summer my air is usually on around 70 on automatic. I also have a fan too, that use every night while I sleep. I don't leave the air on why I am in the bed.
I just use a fan and open windows. I rarely use the air conditioner. I'm a single mom and have no help with bills. I'd rather be a little hot than run the air conditioner and risk not being able to pay the bill at all because it's too high. When I do use the air conditioner on the hottest days of the year, I have it set around 72. I have only used my air conditioner twice this year.
Don't you hate it when people respond in answer to your subject-line (practically IGNORING the rest of your original post)? Like Jessi said, 80's fine if you keep it constantly-blowing. If your thermostat turns the air off when it gets down to a certain temperature, that might save energy (rather than having it blow all the time to keep it at 80, you can have it blow colder (tho I don't know whether that uses more energy) & stop when it hits 78, resting until it hits '81' (or whatever temperature is too hot) and starts cooling it back down again. Yeah, long ago I heard that room-temperature was 72-degrees; so that's where my thermostat usually hovers.
I'm not sure how it would lower the bill, I supposed if you have a unit that cycles on and off the higher the set temp the less often it will have to run? I keep mine around 71 or so. My boyfriend is always hot so instead of arguing over a few degrees I just wear yoga pants in the apartment and leave it at that. When he's away on business I tend to keep it around 76 and have never noticed much of a difference in our bill.
