I saw this Q&A on one of my favorite money-saving blogs and couldn't help but share both: Source:Log In Click, read, subscribe, fall in love, never look back.
Even though he wrote that out, you will have people fight you to the death about leaving the air on a set temperature. You would be going against decades of behavior, especially since when people do turn it off all day, they inevitably pull it way past 75 degrees to try to cool the house down when they return. I think we used to leave the air on, but at a temperature in the 80s, so it wouldn't be an apartment at a temp in the 90s.
Lol ... we barely use the air con !! even when it is 100-110 outside... Few tips : - keep trees around your house (if not a fire hazard), they will protect you from the heat - insulation works wonders for heat - a good roof is key, when we change ours we went for some extra space and that dropped the temperature of the house ... easily 20 degrees lower than outside !
Those are nice tips, but not exactly something that just anyone can do and certainly not before this summer gets underway or even completes. The insulation or the new roofing is possible, but it takes time and space to just grow a tree. Not to mention, none of that really helps anyone in an apartment.
My house is insulated and it gets extremely hot inside. I tried to no have the air conditioning on to save money and I couldn't take the heat. I don't like insulation only if you live in a cold area. If you're in the middle of the desert it doesn't make any sense to have your house insulated. I would never run the air conditioning all day when I'm not at home. It seems strange I'll just wait until I get home to turn on the air.
I just put in a heat pump last year and its first time we have had air conditioning. I just turn it down a few degrees during the day and have it timed to come back on just before I get home from work. I guess I am of the thought that I don't turn it right off so the house heats up goofy like but let it get a little warmer so there isn't a huge swing. This is what the tech company told me when installing it. A huge swing at the end of the day isn't good. Another tip is to close all of your curtains during the day causing natural shade in your house. My wife would get made at me for closing all of the blinds and shades but it works. Instead of the house being 80 it stays at 75 during the day, even when it's really hot out. The opposite works in the winter. Open everything up and let the sun heat your house.
I get a not found error when I click on the source link :/ But funny, I have the AC running right now
We don't have air conditioning, as it exacerbates our breathing problems, but I always close the shutters in hot weather, to keep the house cooler. It's simple, but it's effective. Ceiling fans are excellent for cooling down the house quickly. We set ours on the highest speed when we come in, and within minutes the house is much cooler. You can buy ceiling fans with incorporated light fittings, and they're not particularly expensive. We have them in all our rooms.
I shut mine off all day when I am not home. It doesn't take THAT much to re-cool my place because its only 1000 square feet, and I close off the spare bedroom I am not using anyway. I already tested the theory. Leave ac on all day at the same temp for the month, and it cost me $145. Then I turned it off during the day, because I was barely home in this days, and only turned it on when I got home, and it reduced my bill to $65. SO, yeah, I turn it off if I am going to be gone all day. Just makes sense.
Great tips. Other tips are to keep your unit and outside unit clean. Our air was not cooling lower than 80's. My husband power washed the unit and outside fan. Now our air runs so cold I am actually too cold most of the time. Make sure you know what you are doing when cleaning the units as pressure washing them wrong can damage the coils. We also replaced our really OLD thermostat and the unit seems to be kicking off more and not running as much.
I checked out the site, interesting. I love going to learnvest.com for great free finance fun too. I rarely use the aircon for a number of reasons...but mainly because it seems to give me headaches and it seems to dry out the air. When visiting hot countries like Thailand or similar, aircon is pretty much a 'must' if you want to be comfortable or even semi functioning. That was a cool post and nice website.
For those of you that have homes, aren't there thermometers that you can schedule to turn on by time versus temperature? Are they not effective or are they just too expensive?
We only run our air conditioning when it is quite hot here. If it is 80 outside during the day, then I can often get away with open windows and a fan. When it is 90 and humid, if I don't leave the ac on all day it will never cool off to the desired temperature later in the day. But that is just the upstairs, the downstairs and the basement don't get too hot.
We definitely could do without air conditioning. I have just in the last couple of years started using it a little more often because we have small children and it makes it easier for regulating their temperature when sleeping. But if we aren't home, we don't run it, plain and simple. It doesn't take that long to cool off once we do turn it on and we have found the using strategically placed ceiling fans throughout the house and small occilating fans in bedrooms as well. It has tremendously helped our electric bill to do those things.
Honestly, when I'm home during the day, it's hard NOT to keep it running. Even when I turn it off it gets so hot in the house that it shuts on automatically. And honestly, I'm glad for that since my house feels like it's on fire with how bad the heat gets in here.
I wish I could follow this advice, but not gonna happen. I've found that when I shut things on and off, it tends to make the bills MORE expensive. It's best to just keep it on one temperature and just keep in moving. I don't rely on space heaters or fans anymore cause those use a lot of energy. Just set the temp on a bearable medium (not to hot or cold) and let it do its thing.....
Either way you are screwing yourself if you drop it down to 75 when you get home. Starting something from an idle state will consume more power than allowing it to work infrequently. Turning the AC off then turning it on when you get home and down to 75 will not be helping you. Keeping the temperature higher will essentially do the same thing without allowing the unit to stop for 8-10 hours a day. I have my AC up to about 82 when we are out of the house and then come home and drop it maybe 2 degrees or so at a time. Use more fans around your house to keep cool.
I would love to do this in my house. The bill is so high lately. But with so many people living here, there's pretty much always someone home so turning off the AC isn't an option for me.
I prefer ceiling fans to air conditioning anyway. But even though I hate the hot weather, I don't see the need to always turn on the air conditioning.
I've read where it's cheaper if you keep it on rather than turn it on to try to cool off a warm or hot house. It seems weird but if you have the thermostat set between 75-78 during the morning and afternoon while you're at work it will only come on a couple of times while you are out. The best thing to do is to get on the year-round plan that most electricity companies offer, then you pay the same rate, give or take a couple of bucks, every month, that way you're not stuck with an astronomical bill.
