Air condition in MT? (houses, to buy, subdivisions) - City-Data Forum

wawagners · 11-04-2008, 07:55 PM

Do you have to have central air conditon installed in Montana or does it stay cool enough you can just open the windows?

bigtrees · 11-04-2008, 09:14 PM

Depends if your house is in the sun or not. If it gets afternoon sun, air conditioning can be very nice because the evening sun will bake houses, especially in July / August when it is 95 degrees outside. If your house is well shaded by trees you may not need it.

With that said, does a guy really want to spend big bucks for something you only may use 1 or 2 months a year?

Mt-7 · 11-04-2008, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wawagners

Do you have to have central air conditon installed in Montana or does it stay cool enough you can just open the windows?

Here on the east side it can get a bit miserable. A window unit gets the job done in my little house. Agree on the cost factor, agree that it is only a month or so, with the new prez our utility bills may be going up.

Stephan_K · 11-04-2008, 10:25 PM

Nope, no AC. But after this year, we will have to get something to take the edge off. Like bigtrees said, in July and Aug. by the afternoon, your house is smokin if in the sun. Our house is fine until 4:30. After that the trees are no longer in the way and you can forget about it... My tongue is hanging on the floor until 10:00 at night on those 90 - 100 degree days.

A medium sized window unit will do the trick for us for those few really hot days during those couple months. I can't see spending the funds for a forced air system with AC just for maybe a months worth of total use a year. But we have a small house too. Now if you have one of those McMansions out in one of those subdivisions with no trees, that's a different story.

When the sun hits the horizon, it cools off real quick but the hot house mass radiates heat ALL night long. Windows open with fans helps but keeping the house from getting so hot in the first place is more comfortable.

Mt-7 · 11-04-2008, 11:06 PM

I keep the drapes pulled and doors closed to keep the cooler air in one area of the house. A couple of ceiling fans also help. The heat here is nothing like a high humidity heat. Hope this helps.

jimj · 11-05-2008, 07:04 AM

When we built 3 years ago I decided it wasn't worth the extra money so I didn't put it in. I open the windows when I get up at about 3 am and leave them open until about 8 am and that cools the house most days. We do have ceiling fans in every room as well.
I love the heat anyway and while it does get hot at times it's only for a week or two at the most so it's no big deal, besides I really like the power bills dropping to $50-$60 a month.
That's what rivers and rafts are for anyway!

Vulcan500 · 11-05-2008, 11:33 AM

When I built 6 yrs ago, saving $ was top of the list so I went with radiant floor heat and no AC. 2007 was my last miserable summer - I bought 3 window units (and keep shades drawn during the day) and summer 2008 was *much* better. Yep, love the summer and its warmth, but too much and it makes me crabby. Radiant heat will pay for itself quickly; highly recommended. Much more efficient than GFA.

Radek · 11-05-2008, 01:00 PM

At my house, this last summer we shut the house when we went to bed at 2am, closed blinds, drapes, etc (my roommates and I are mostly nightowls) and then we kept it closed for as long as possible, and in the evening open them back up, turn the fans back on, etc. It got a little hot in my room, but part of that is that my drapes in my room were not very good at keeping the sunlight out.

I now have darker drapes that work wonders, and we had 3 fans placed strategically through the house to get a draft from one side to the other.

wawagners · 11-05-2008, 05:25 PM

Thank ya'll very much. That does help a lot. Living in Texas it can reach 110+ and we have very high humitity so we could live w/ no A.C. for a couple of hot weeks up there. We're all about saving money and not being wasteful and when we move up there it won't be in a big facy subdivision house. We just want a nice small log home NOT in a subdivision. Thanks again for the help. :-)

bigtrees · 11-05-2008, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wawagners

Thank ya'll very much. That does help a lot. Living in Texas it can reach 110+ and we have very high humitity so we could live w/ no A.C. for a couple of hot weeks up there. We're all about saving money and not being wasteful and when we move up there it won't be in a big facy subdivision house. We just want a nice small log home NOT in a subdivision. Thanks again for the help. :-)

Log homes change things a lot because you generally don't install ductwork in log homes since the walls are solid rather than hollow....you could go for a window unit but your house will have a very large thermal mass so it'd be hard to keep it cool with a window unit.

So for a log home, I'm thinking that you're just about out of luck for a clean, inexpensive, invisible cooling system.

I do like log homes - I'm trying to buy one where I'm at now (in Western Washington on 10 acres) so hopefully I'll own one of my own before too long.