Anyone in the Valley using their air conditioners yet? (bills, electricity)

[43north87west]

Originally Posted by observer53

I can't imagine what that temperature must be, if your AC has been on "every night for a month or more" in MARCH, or what your summer AC bill must be.

Or, your post was an April Fool joke.

No... it's true. We had a big winter storm a few weeks ago, and I think I did have the patio doors open for two nights when that happened, but other than that I've had the A/C running. It may have only kicked on a few times on some nights, but it's definitely been set to A/C and I've had cold air coming out nightly.

The thing is, my building is all concrete and it maintains a stable temperature, but that temperature isn't usually what I want for the night time. I have unobstructed east exposure so I get sun from dawn until before noon, then shade. But, I only have east exposure, so I don't have very good flow-through ventilation because it's not like I can open the windows on the other side--everything is on the east.

I program the thermostat more or less like this:

78/75 day/night (summer)
off/72 day/night (winter)

The A/C is set to 80 when I leave (~15 days a month June-December). Then the other couple of weeks I'm here, guzzling A/C. I've never seen a bill more than $125, regular APS rates. But, this place is only a little over 1000 square feet, which helps out a lot.

This is by far, the most energy efficient residence I have had. Because of the east exposure and concrete structure, the building maintains low 80s in the summer, even if I shut off the A/C for a day. I've tried it.

[ReadyFreddy]

Originally Posted by Foreverking

How do I find out about the workshop?

Register and attend a shade tree workshop

The next one with openings is July 21, and the trees are given out in Oct. I just paid $180 for two trees not much bigger than that (planted).

[Pink Jazz]

Well everyone, today we turned on our A/C for the very first time this year. It was getting too hot in one part of our house, so we decided to run it.

[CheyDee]

Ours definitely kicked on during the afternoon the past couple of days.

[Packard fan]

Still holding off. The temps are supposed to be less by Wed.

[observer53]

Not running it here.. Only mid 70s in house, ceiling fans if needed. It's all good.

[Pink Jazz]

Originally Posted by Packard fan

Still holding off. The temps are supposed to be less by Wed.

Of course, we have programmable thermostats, and the AC will only run if it needs to.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by Andros 1337

Of course, we have programmable thermostats, and the AC will only run if it needs to.

It's not what it needs to do, it's what you tell it to do by programming the thermostat.

I love these days of not having to run AC or heat.

[S. Chris Webb]

Haven't turned on the AC yet. On these warm days, we keep our windows open at night through the morning until it is warmer outside than in the house (high 70's, 11:00am-noonish). House seems to be pretty efficiently insulated and hasn't been getting hot so far. We work from home and haven't been uncomfortable at all. We rarely turn the heat on in the winter, either.

[Catastrophy]

We aren't getting enough consecutive days of heat for it to be an issue yet. Some days are in the late 80s-90s and others are in the mid-70s. The weather is all over the place right now but it's not actually hot until the concrete doesn't get much time to cool down with days of continuous heat.