Air conditioner setting for snowbirds

[Derek G.Rennie]

We had our A/c set at 84, now it's reset to 79 here in Sun City. It's continually switching on/off. We have the ceiling fan running plus a larg 2 gall swanp cooler. Our power bills are much higher than last year?

[Zippyman]

Originally Posted by Derek G.Rennie

We had our A/c set at 84, now it's reset to 79 here in Sun City. It's continually switching on/off. We have the ceiling fan running plus a larg 2 gall swanp cooler. Our power bills are much higher than last year?

There's a big difference in cost between 79 & 84 degrees. I'd think really hard about leaving a swamp cooler running in an un- occupied house- a failure in a swamp cooler could ruin the house.

A family member had plumbing for a swamp cooler (no cooler), and when the pipe leaked, it destroyed his bathroom ceiling. If he hadn't been living there, the house would have been flooded. Since then, I've started cutting & capping the plumbing that goes into the attic on my rentals, those pipes are probably at least 20 years old, and the only pipe that is guaranteed not to leak eventually is one without any water in it. Many swamp coolers are plumbed with soft copper tubing, which isn't as durable as regular "hard" copper.

If you must leave the water on in a vacant house, at a minimum, I'd shut off the supply at the washer, the fridge & the reverse-osmosis. At my parents place, the water is "on" with the city, but we shut it off at the house. When we check the property, we turn the water in the house on just long enough to fill all of the sink/tub traps/toilets, then shut it back off at the house again. The irrigation is not affected, there are separate shutoffs for that.

On another note, leaving the irrigation on is still a risk, in the past three weeks I've had two main irrigation valves explode for no reason at my rentals, sending a stream of water 20 feet into the air.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

I understand that fabrics don't like hot / dry air over long periods of time. I felt the carpet that we replaced (a foreclosure) and it was somewhat brittle to the touch. Supposedly elastic also has troubles with dry hot air over a long period of time. If anybody can verify this last point, that would be appreciated.

In 2011, I put in a lot of buckets of water in every room and turned OFF the air. The fabrics held up fine using this approach. I could feel an increase in humidity inside of the house when I visited. I do have wireless thermostats in my AZ home. The 1st level was is 91 degrees when it was 107 outside. The upstairs was 96 degrees.

I might set the thermostats to 100 degrees upstairs (and off downstairs). I installed those thermostats in January so I don't know how hot it might get. My 2006 built home has sun screens and barely any windows on the west side of the home. But like I said I didn't have ANY troubles in 2011.

If you are thinking of setting to 100, might as well turn it off.