I think that I spend a ton more money on the cooling the apartment in the summer time. The summers can be pretty harsh here, and only appear to be worsening. I don't know the general stance of most on the idea of global climate change, but I buy it with how crazy the temperatures can be fluctuating. I usually would be stubborn and hold out on spending too much or upping my energy bill and usage, however I often bake goodies. I don't typically have much room in my refrigerator for everything, so there is a lot that may have to stay at room temperature. I also enjoy having my butter at room temperature so that I can have it on had for baking. That said, keeping my apartment cool enough things don't go bad so quickly is very important. I have recently had a huge spike in the cost of my energy bill due to this. I suppose it's worth the sacrifice. The other thing is I can typically put up with freezing in the winter to save the money, not to mention the added bonus of things don't go bad nearly as fast. It's always been easier to bundle up after all, but there comes a point when you can't remove anymore clothing to get cooler.
I agree and I pretty much like this thing you do: keep things at room temperature in summer while cooling the room at maximum and let things stay in the cold room in winter as they surely don't go bad that fast when it's cold
I spend more on cooling my place. I live on a warm area so I think that is just normal. We have three rooms, two of which are air-conditioned and they eat too much electricity!
We spend more money on heating our home. This is because the tenant doesn't go out as often in the winter and so he tends to have the air conditioners running more frequently. The other reason I think is, that because it is so cold I prefer to sit in front of the fire than stand in a cold kitchen and wash dishes so I use the dishwasher more frequently in winter than in summer.
We spend very little if any money on heating and cooling the home...but when we do, I think it is about evenly. Generally, our house has very high ceilings so the air circulates well...our home is also naturally insulated etc, so we spend very little on heating. Perhaps only a few dollars a month. There were costs initially...but now it is all good.
I am certain that we spend much more on cooling our house. The triple digit temperatures cause me to run the A/C a lot more than I would prefer. In my area of residence, we have very mild winters. There are several days throughout the winter season that we do not use the heater at all.
I'd say I spend more on cooling. We don't have air conditioning, as both my husband and myself have breathing problems, but we do have ceiling fans in all the rooms, and they are on all day every day, as well as a couple of portable column fans that we move around where they're needed. And of course, the fridge has to be on a higher setting for summer. In the winter, we either have a log fire, or use our portable bottled gas heater. Gas and logs are very cheap here, and the winters are mild, so we definitely use more energy for cooling the place in summer, even though our property is north facing.
I spend very little on heating and cooling my home. My home is insulated and I have approx. 17-19 windows on each floor. I normally use heat during the ending or January and February, but only for a few days. In the summer I just open the windows.
I now live in a small studio, and I spend more on heating. We have heat from the general urban system, and sometimes when is really cold we start the air conditioning on max heat. We also use it sometimes for colling down, but usually in the summer we don't stay home as much, and we come only at night when the high temperatures are gone.
It gets pretty cold in the winter where we live so I am pretty certain that we spend more on heating than what we do for cooling. The summers here are not too terribly hot and always seem to be way too short. The winters last much longer and we can get below zero for several days at a time.
Cooling because I hate the heat and barely ever use it...honestly, 30's and 40's are nice and comfortable to me, I basically don't use hate because I like the feeling of being cold...weird, right?
We spend a significant amount more cooling our house. In our area, temperatures can easily exceed 100 in the summer. Thankfully though, our winters are quite mild. We might have a few days where the temperature gets below 40 degrees, so that is nice.
Heating. We don't have AC and only turn the fan on if it gets over 25. It only goes over 30 2 or 3 days per year, and only over 35 once every 3 years or so. So AC just isn't worth it. We have the heating on for between 60-90 days a year. We spend a few hundred pounds each year on heating and probably less than 5 on cooling.
I got told by a person I worked with "I don't know how you can live without air conditioning." Well, easy. It is a cost thing with me, and I actually like the heat except when it gets really hot. But I do use a fan. That I believe costs a lot less than air conditioning, although I haven't tried to find out the power cost differences. I know some love air. I actually don't. But that person who said she didn't know how I can live like this. I guess in part I am a different generation than she. I actually have air in my truck and use it, but sparingly. Ryder13
See, that's our problem here. Most of the year it is really hot or unbearably hot. So we don't really have a choice not to turn the air on. We don't spend any money heating the house. But it's nice to have about two months of the year where we can turn off the air.
I was actually the opposite, I used to spend more on heating only because I had a gas heater and an electric air conditioner, but since I barely switched to electric heater and cut my gas supply completely I don't know yet we will see in the summer time
We spend more on cooling than heating the place. We also put on my clothes if we are cold, and since I am in the South it doesn't get too terribly cold that much. Like today, the temps are in the 60s so we have opened up some windows. in the summer, OMG, it is unbearable here.
In my area the winters vary and can be mild at time but the summers are hot and humid. Last summer we had a week over 100 degrees. We must run the A/C so that we don't melt. So far this winter it has been unusually cold down below 20degrees for days at a time. So I would say the summer time we spend more on A/C.