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I did look for data to back you up and found none on that site.
Show us the data ..please...
I would love to be cooler and save money this summer....
Must be on another site, I will find it and post it up. I have about 30 sites I pull home info from, but usually AE covers these bases.
ps- Turning it off while you are away is obviously the best route (or at least set it real high, no a/c to remove humidity causes its' own set of problems), I was assuming "at home" conditions.
Well, I found some other data, then talked to a friend of mine that is an HVAC Engineer, and looks like I was wrong and it was a myth... or only has some truth with older compressors from the early 80's and beyond at best.
78 degrees is that standard recommendation according to him for optimal efficiency in your typical modern house.
I learned my something new for today, I think its time for a nap lol.
This is our first summer in NC and our first with central air. Ceiling fans and window a/c's at night were sufficient in MA.
Upstairs we set it to 80 during the day, 78 at night. Ceiling fans are constantly on. It rarely gets above 80 degrees downstairs, our tv/playroom is upstairs, so downstairs is yet to be switched on (except 2 wks ago when we got home from vacation after, our home was 92 degrees inside). Our neighbor keeps theirs at 74, we are dressed for 80, so Im chilly when I go over there.
During the winter we set it to 65 during the day. At night we set it the upstairs to 62 (we use one of those electric oil filled radiator heaters in each of the childrens rooms, they are energy star and quite cheap to operate) and downstairs to 58. We turn everything down to 60 when we go out.
Our highest gas bill so far was $158 for February 2008 (heat, water heater, stove and fireplace - although it wasnt used). Our highest electric bill so far was our last one, May-June 2008 $104. Our house is around 2550 sq feet and I am home during the day with my children.
I feel quite spoiled. We have ours at 72, although I've read several times to keep it warmer. I have a house of five inhabitants who are in/out all day. I am also 38 weeks pregnant, so after receiving some crazy low gas and electric bills for the past year (I'm talking $68 electric, $28 gas for April!! For a 1700 single zone house!!), we have happily rewarded ourselves with ample cooling this past month.
We used to live in CT and hated A/C, b/c our only option was the ones you put in the window (YUCK!) I laugh now to think about how we used to put our pillows and comforter in the big freezer all day, to have a precious ten minutes of coolness before sleep....
Count your blessings that in NC central air is standard. it's not like 80+ degrees is exactly comfortable sleeping weather, even if it's only from May-September. In 1 house, 1 dorm, 1 frat house, and 3 apartments, i've always had nothing or the one in the window. ugh. we have 3 ACs running every minute we're home, the one with a thermostat is set to 69. we turn them off when we're not home.
I, for one, am so excited to have hot, humid summers in Raleigh because of the central air vs the nearly as hot summers here without.
My husband has been a licensed HVAC tech for 18 years. He told me tonight that unless you set your thermostat to 63 ot 65 in the summer, your compressor will not and does not run continously. It runs for periods of time (like half an hour) to get your house to whatever temp you set it to, and then it shuts down. So regardless of what temp you set, it is continously turning on and shutting down anyhow. He says it does take a surge for it to kick on but the savings of setting your thermostat for a higher temp in the summer when you are out of the house far outweighs that issue (unless you'll only be gone an hour or two...we're talking out for the day).
He also said that ceiling fans only circulate the air in the room that they are in and the cost of running them exceeds any savings of keeping the thermostat higher, and again, there is no actual cooling benefit if no one is in the room.
I've had to listen to this stuff for years....I guess its all finally sinking in.
Lauren
76 to 78. It knocks the edge off, keeps it low humidity which helps allergies.
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