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i actually did what you did, until i get to a store to find something like that dark light/heat reflecting film!!!!
yeah it might be trailer trash redneck, but i dont care. i live alone with my dogs. i dont care what it looks like. its just a rental home.
oh and for those who answered and mentioned thermal windows. how do i know if they are thermal windows? i know, stupid question....but i have no clue!
Quote:
Originally Posted by crazyma
In my spare bedrooms, I took a big pretty woven table cloth and clothespinned it to my wood blind. It blocks the west setting sun very well, a notable difference in room temp. In the other room, I took an old big beach towel , sewed a pocket & put an old tension rod thru. Then I just kinda laid it over the top of the outside mount blind in there.It sure helps. May not look great but who cares. I care more about savings than seeing out those windows!
And the good thing is I can whip them down and outta sight when we have a showing on our house for sale.
Look at one, up close. Thermal windows are double or triple-paned. Traditional windows are single-paned. Also, open one and look inside the frame. It might say what they are and what the R-value is.
Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gbugmiami
I did the home window tints from home depot on my sliding glass doors. Id never done it before, and it surely didnt come out perfect, but the difference was very noticeable. Im getting ready to do my other sliding doors on the east side of the house now too in homes of lowering the bill some more. I think it cost me less than $40 to do the double doors. Mine are behind the venetian blinds so the imperfections done bother me. If you did a really really bad job, it comes off with a razor blade, so no landlord issues id think.
Your right, it does reduce the temps and is cost effective. But I must give you a heads up. After soaking up sun for a few years it will take quite a bit of work to get that stuff off with a razor blade. Actually scratched the glass.
well i am only here in this house till late sept so should be ok.....
Quote:
Originally Posted by motormaker
Your right, it does reduce the temps and is cost effective. But I must give you a heads up. After soaking up sun for a few years it will take quite a bit of work to get that stuff off with a razor blade. Actually scratched the glass.
Things you can do to help the heat load in your home on those really hot days:
1.Make sure all windows, doors and fireplaces are closed and blinds and curtains are drawn to block as much radiant heat as possible. If you see sunlight hitting your floor then radiant heat is being added to your home.
2.Run your dryers during the coolest part of the day. Your dryer uses the air in your home to dry your clothes and exits it outside the home leaving your home in a negative pressure allowing more hot outdoor ambient air to enter your home through infiltration.
3.Turn all the lights off possible. Each 60 watt bulb equals 204.78 Btu’s which is a little more than the amount of heat it takes to turn 32 degree water into 212 degree water (180 Btu’s).
4.Try not to heat up water, use the dishwasher or take showers in the hottest part of the day (usually around 5 p.m.). You’re A/C’s first job is to remove humidity or latent heat. You may notice the latent heat as that condensate line you hear water dripping into for you’re A/C. The more humidity in the air the less comfortable it feels to humans due to how the body cools itself off with evaporation of sweat. The higher the relative humidity the less moisture can be evaporated into the air.
5.One of the laws of thermal dynamics is that heat travels from where it is to where it isn’t. Also the greater the difference in temperature the faster the heat travels. Remember this when you want it 70 degrees in your apartment and its 100 degrees outside.
6.Charlotte design temperature for homes is 91 degrees per ACCA manual J 8th. What that means is that 99% of the time the temperature will be at or below that number. A/C’s are not designed for the hottest day of the year or max temperatures because it would perform very poorly under part load conditions leaving the conditioned space with high humidity and costing you more to run the equipment. It takes approximately 10 minutes for a system to equalize and be at its most efficient. When the system short cycles or cuts on and off very frequently that’s the most expensive way to run it.
7.If possible get fluorescent bulbs for your home.
8.Any item that produces heat like hair dryers, ovens and stoves should not be used during those times when the A/C system is having a hard time keeping up or near that design temperature.
9.You may notice some homes can stay cool while others don’t seem to be cooling properly. Location, orientation and floor level have very dramatic effects on the heat load for an apartment. Third floors in direct sunlight have the highest heat load. First floors out of the direct sunlight generally have the lowest heat load.
10.Each human that enters or lives in a home is responsible for approximately 430 Btu’s 230 sensible Btu’s and 200 Latent Btu’s. Sensible heat is heat that can be recorded with a normal thermometer. Latent heat is hidden heat and needs to be recorded with a special thermometer or hygrometer.
11. If you can turn your hot water down it will cut down on the heat load in a home also for the same reason the greater the temp difference the faster the heat travels.
12. Any item that uses electricity adds heat to your home.
13. Make sure all vents and doors are fully open. Make sure the return vent is not blocked or obstructed by any items. The system needs to move lots of air for it to be able to cool the space off. The more restricted in the intake the less output. A lot of times to the point where the unit freezes and has to be thawed out. If you notice no air coming out of the vents but can hear it running that’s most likely the cause of it or an extremely dirty filter/coil/fan.
Some of these may not apply but most probably do. If you have makeup air for your dryer or vents that exhaust out of the home you can ignore those but dryers will still add some heat to the structure while in use through the body of the dryer.....the more insulated the better. It's going to be hard to do a lot to just one item like windows but if you look at it from an entire picture viewpoint it might be able to save elsewhere to offset the large windows.
Also the more mass you have in your home i.e...furniture, TV's, people, toys, magazines, boxes....blah blah......The more mass your HVAC system has to cool. It is considered thermal mass since all the different materials will heat up at different rates this is a in general statement because if you have lead in your home it's going to take a lot longer than paper towels. So cut the mass down in both the home and car and you will see savings.
Last edited by BigJon3475; 06-12-2008 at 06:42 AM..
WOW! THAT WAS GREAT! THANK YOU SO SO MUCH! I forgot ALL about the fireplace flue-it was still open from using it during winter!
hey i leave my tv on for my dogs-they watch animal planet while i am at work. do you think leaving a small 20 inch tv on all day uses alot of electricity?
quote=BigJon3475;4076707]Things you can do to help the heat load in your home on those really hot days:
1.Make sure all windows, doors and fireplaces are closed and blinds and curtains are drawn to block as much radiant heat as possible. If you see sunlight hitting your floor then radiant heat is being added to your home.
2.Run your dryers during the coolest part of the day. Your dryer uses the air in your home to dry your clothes and exits it outside the home leaving your home in a negative pressure allowing more hot outdoor ambient air to enter your home through infiltration.
3.Turn all the lights off possible. Each 60 watt bulb equals 204.78 Btu’s which is a little more than the amount of heat it takes to turn 32 degree water into 212 degree water (180 Btu’s).
4.Try not to heat up water, use the dishwasher or take showers in the hottest part of the day (usually around 5 p.m.). You’re A/C’s first job is to remove humidity or latent heat. You may notice the latent heat as that condensate line you hear water dripping into for you’re A/C. The more humidity in the air the less comfortable it feels to humans due to how the body cools itself off with evaporation of sweat. The higher the relative humidity the less moisture can be evaporated into the air.
5.One of the laws of thermal dynamics is that heat travels from where it is to where it isn’t. Also the greater the difference in temperature the faster the heat travels. Remember this when you want it 70 degrees in your apartment and its 100 degrees outside.
6.Charlotte design temperature for homes is 91 degrees per ACCA manual J 8th. What that means is that 99% of the time the temperature will be at or below that number. A/C’s are not designed for the hottest day of the year or max temperatures because it would perform very poorly under part load conditions leaving the conditioned space with high humidity and costing you more to run the equipment. It takes approximately 10 minutes for a system to equalize and be at its most efficient. When the system short cycles or cuts on and off very frequently that’s the most expensive way to run it.
7.If possible get fluorescent bulbs for your home.
8.Any item that produces heat like hair dryers, ovens and stoves should not be used during those times when the A/C system is having a hard time keeping up or near that design temperature.
9.You may notice some homes can stay cool while others don’t seem to be cooling properly. Location, orientation and floor level have very dramatic effects on the heat load for an apartment. Third floors in direct sunlight have the highest heat load. First floors out of the direct sunlight generally have the lowest heat load.
10.Each human that enters or lives in a home is responsible for approximately 430 Btu’s 230 sensible Btu’s and 200 Latent Btu’s. Sensible heat is heat that can be recorded with a normal thermometer. Latent heat is hidden heat and needs to be recorded with a special thermometer or hygrometer.
11. If you can turn your hot water down it will cut down on the heat load in a home also for the same reason the greater the temp difference the faster the heat travels.
12. Any item that uses electricity adds heat to your home.
13. Make sure all vents and doors are fully open. Make sure the return vent is not blocked or obstructed by any items. The system needs to move lots of air for it to be able to cool the space off. The more restricted in the intake the less output. A lot of times to the point where the unit freezes and has to be thawed out. If you notice no air coming out of the vents but can hear it running that’s most likely the cause of it or an extremely dirty filter/coil/fan.
Some of these may not apply but most probably do. If you have makeup air for your dryer or vents that exhaust out of the home you can ignore those but dryers will still add some heat to the structure while in use through the body of the dryer.....the more insulated the better. It's going to be hard to do a lot to just one item like windows but if you look at it from an entire picture viewpoint it might be able to save elsewhere to offset the large windows.
Also the more mass you have in your home i.e...furniture, TV's, people, toys, magazines, boxes....blah blah......The more mass your HVAC system has to cool. It is considered thermal mass since all the different materials will heat up at different rates this is a in general statement because if you have lead in your home it's going to take a lot longer than paper towels. So cut the mass down in both the home and car and you will see savings.[/quote]
Last edited by NOTAM; 06-12-2008 at 07:08 AM..
Reason: spelling
thats relative to how much you think you should be leaving on......I get ill with a 13 watt light bulb while other could leave their stove on.
From my point of view you yeah. From someone else maybe not *shrugz shoulders* If your willing to pay for it and it serves your purpose of entertainment then by all means keep on doing what your doing. If power prices become and issue to you there's other entertainment possibly.
oh another question! i live in a four bedroom house. it's just me and the dogs. so three bedrooms are totally empty. i have the vents closed in there, thinking that it saves money by not having to cool/heat those rooms, and vents the air into only the rooms that i use. is this correct?
oh another question! i live in a four bedroom house. it's just me and the dogs. so three bedrooms are totally empty. i have the vents closed in there, thinking that it saves money by not having to cool/heat those rooms, and vents the air into only the rooms that i use. is this correct?
In general no. In some very specific applications it's okay. The reason being interior walls aren't insulated so if you have an 85* room next to a 70* room the heat from that is going to travel pretty quickly to the smaller room.
When trying to grasp why it's not okay it's hard to understand and explain.
Aside from variable capacity HVAC systems they are designed for a specific load/capacity. To achieve that capacity it moves x amount of air which is transfered into y amount of refrigerant at z mass flow rate.
That heat boils the refrigerant off so it can travel back to the compressor where it's compressed into a hot gas and runs through the outside coil where the heat is rejected. You feel the hot air coming off the outdoor unit when in cooling mode.
1 vent probably won't make a huge difference 2 vents starts to cut your airflow dramatically and you may start to hear whistles through the other vents anymore and I would guess you have all kinds of air shooting out of every leak crack and hole on your supply side of your system. After a certain amount of them are closed your air movement will be so low your evaporator coil will start to freeze when it freezes air flow rapidly diminishes.
Where HVAC does it's work is by evaporating that ref. into a gas completely. Thats where it absorbs the most amount of heat. The problem with shutting vents is you are taking away that heat that boils the ref. off so the more vents you close the dense that ref. becomes until it's at a point where it's liquid returning back to the compressor. That's not good liquids don't compress and very saturated vapor requires more work to compress or higher amperage draw......which leads to higher bills.
Not easy to explain sorry.......there are devices in the newer equipment which are very helpful for varying loads one is called TXV or TEV or thermostatic expansion device (all the same device). Which basically meter the ref. so it's always a vapor returning back to the compressor. But even those can only help so much. If the pressure of the evaporator coil goes below freezing they will not work properly either.
It all starts with air
You maybe fine you may be costing yourself. One way to try and guestimate if your doing any harm would be to listen to it at startup....does it sound rather load and as it runs for a few seconds quiets down or does it run loud at first and only slightly quiets down. You can get an idea of the strain on the compressor by listening to it while it runs......does it sounds like a weed eater or is it quietly hum?
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