What temp do you keep Central Air? (dewpoint, most, normal)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I would disagree strongly to the A/C being needed for no suffering. Sure, there's a bit discomfort but many don't find it a huge issue.
.
Wow. I strongly suggest that if you lived in a place like Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans, South Carolina, or any place in Florida, you would change your mind. In our modern society, A/C is no longer a luxury, especially with all of the sensitive electronic equipment that we have.
I remember life without A/C in The South, and it was miserable. Not only do you suffer greatly from the heat, but humidity, pollen and mold spores can be life-threatening to a lot of individuals.
Oh, I live in Northern Colorado, 40° N. latitude and 5,000 ft. elevation. I was advised when I moved up here that only about 50% of people had A/C and that it really was needed only a couple of weeks in July or August. Subsequently we have had two of the hottest summers since records have been kept. I keep my A/C on 72°-74° and it has been running since early June. If temperatures were EVER to be what the average is, I could live without A/C, but the way things are in this day and time, the temperatures seem to always be above average.
Since the middle of June, we have had 8 days of 100°+ temperatures and 17 days of 95°+, which is unprecedented. The normal highs and lows for June are 81°-85°. It has been hot.
This applies to Central Air, Air Conditioning, Swamp Coolers, etc.
I have my thermostat set at 82F.
What about you?
As an a/c Tech and Owner, in hot and dry climates i suggest 82 f. or higher based on indoor activity levels and what you can bear. In hot and humid climates i suggest no higher than 80 f for mold growth concerns -- an important benefit of air conditioning is to dehumidify the interior which means the a/c must operate in order to accomplish this . Running indepedent Dehumidifiers are an option in very humid parts of the Country while keeping the Thermostat for the A/C at a higher level.
Ideally, any Comfort Cooling System should be able to maintain a 20 f. difference between outside temps and indoor temp providing it is working correctly and is properly sized in addition to the ductwork also being properly sized.
Well yes, but I don't have Texas in mind. I was thinking New England or Upstate NY. You did say all 48 states.
Well, I would need air conditioning just about everywhere in the lower 48, and it really should be installed on every home considering the conditions present in record-setting heat waves (which do occur from time to time). However, for most people, is it a necessity everywhere in the lower 48? No.
Quote:
What was I referring to people automatically eliminating any temperature above 70°F, makes people who can acclimatize unused to the heat and prevents them from being outside when they could otherwise. Again, I'm not talking about Texas heat but Michigan-type heat.
I agree with you there. Within reason, people should do what they can to acclimate themselves for every season. As for Michigan-type heat, that's pretty nonspecific - Detroit is a lot rougher than Marquette. I'd say air conditioning is a necessity in places like New York, Chicago, and Detroit, because even if you can just barely stand the averages (the group most people would be in), you'll be smoked once it gets hotter than average.
Places like where you live are a shade cooler than that sort of environment, and I think most people could get by without air conditioning, though it would be pretty uncomfortable, and it depends on what sort of house you have. My house is built just like a heat trap and when left to its own devices is almost always hotter than the outside temperature. Even 75F outside can make the inside quite uncomfortable (>75F), and if the nighttime lows stay above 70F it won't cool off to anywhere near a comfortable level. Your house seems to be built differently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmicstargoat
I remember life without A/C in The South, and it was miserable. Not only do you suffer greatly from the heat, but humidity, pollen and mold spores can be life-threatening to a lot of individuals.
Oh yes. I remember one day where I experienced a dew point of around 80F all day. Were it not for air conditioning, and being able to seek shelter, there's a good chance I would be dead now (without medical assistance), since I couldn't get enough air to breathe in that sort of atmosphere. When I went outside there was an elephant-like feeling on my chest, and I could feel the amount of air in my lungs diminishing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmicstargoat
Oh, I live in Northern Colorado, 40° N. latitude and 5,000 ft. elevation. I was advised when I moved up here that only about 50% of people had A/C and that it really was needed only a couple of weeks in July or August. Subsequently we have had two of the hottest summers since records have been kept.
This is another part of the story. Even in a normal summer you'll have days that are quite a bit hotter than average. A lot of people seem to count on it never getting any hotter than average, so when they design their A/C systems to barely keep it down to 78F inside in those conditions, they're completely snuffed out when the inevitable heat wave comes, and these tougher conditions are exactly what they should design this stuff for. It's like the A/C people nowadays have everything backwards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 007.5
As an a/c Tech and Owner, in hot and dry climates i suggest 82 f. or higher based on indoor activity levels and what you can bear. In hot and humid climates i suggest no higher than 80 f for mold growth concerns -- an important benefit of air conditioning is to dehumidify the interior which means the a/c must operate in order to accomplish this . Running indepedent Dehumidifiers are an option in very humid parts of the Country while keeping the Thermostat for the A/C at a higher level.
80F? 82F? Is that just the minimum required to keep the house healthy or are you seriously suggesting that's the temperature for human comfort? If that's the latter, I'd say you're out of touch. When we had a summertime power outage some time ago, my entire family experienced those 82F or higher conditions, and no one (and this is a diverse bunch in weather preferences) could stand it, and everyone had to hole up in hotel rooms for 2 days. On the other hand, maybe you meant to say 82F or lower depending on what you can bear .
Quote:
Ideally, any Comfort Cooling System should be able to maintain a 20 f. difference between outside temps and indoor temp providing it is working correctly and is properly sized in addition to the ductwork also being properly sized.
20F? When push comes to shove 20F isn't going to help anybody, least of all me. When it's 100F or 110F, when you need air conditioning the most, that 20F difference produces an 80F or 90F house. By no stretch of the imagination could I designate that a comfort cooling system. In my view, air conditioning should be fitted to easily get the home to 65F in 100F heat, which should cover all the bases for comfort. That's what I call "ideal". The disadvantages of oversizing (the unit, not the ductwork) are well worth it to me, and the warnings against oversizing seem to assume that air conditioning is just a glorified dehumidifier instead of something designed to effectively cool my house. As you mentioned, there are separate dehumidification systems available.
80F inside is far from pleasant, and acclimation, though advisable to pursue for many, is hardly unlimited, especially for some people such as myself. Some such as yourself have no problem, and I also find it interesting that the two people who have ridiculed air conditioning happen to love warmth as well .
It seems odd to me that you can be comfortable at 70 but find 80 unbearable. That's only a 10 degree difference. In any case, how can you expect to adapt at all to 80 (warm, not hot, by most people's standards) if you cool your house to the 60s? For the record I'm not against AC, just against it's overuse. I'm not a fan of cold weather but if I kept my house at 75 in the winter I would be miserable whenever I went outside.
It seems odd to me that you can be comfortable at 70 but find 80 unbearable. That's only a 10 degree difference. In any case, how can you expect to adapt at all to a 80 (warm, not hot, by most people's standards) if you cool your house to the 60s?
70F is comfortable indoors and 80F indoors is intolerable for me. The difference is in terms of thresholds. My hard limit for comfort and adapting to heat is 74F. Hotter than that I always find uncomfortable (indoors that is). I have tried, and that is my hard limit. My body is incapable of acclimating further than that. This is over periods of months. If after 5 months I'm still suffering and my thresholds are the same as they were a few weeks into the heat, I think we can safely say that it is just a fact of life for me.
At that point keeping my house at uncomfortable levels crosses the line from "present pain for future gain" to simple self-destructiveness. 60's is what I'm most comfortable in and so that is what I set my thermostat to. I've noticed a distinct improvement in my health since I started on that program, and I have also noticed that even after spending days in 65F indoors I still have the same comfort thresholds. 74F is still my maximum comfort level inside, and I find that the heat outside is just as uncomfortable (not more, not less, just the same) as it was when I kept my house much warmer.
Is it odd? From your perspective and even from mine sometimes it is odd. I have confirmed this innate set of characteristics time after time, in the process probably learning more about my body's heat limits than 99% of other people know about theirs, and at the end of the process the odd truth takes its final form, which has been laid out on this forum.
To help you understand it, let's say you had months of consistent cold by your standards. You are quite sensitive to it and find it quite uncomfortable and you try to adapt to it by keeping your heating at cooler levels than you're comfortable in, let's say 55F. Now you're suffering and are in pretty bad shape due to the cold getting to you. After a few days to a week your comfort threshold drops from 65F to 60F. But let's say it's now been 3 months since then and you're still suffering, and your comfort level is still 60F, and you're still just as cold outside as you were when you started. Would it make sense for you to continue, or would it make more sense to turn up the heat to optimum levels, acknowledging that your physiology is incapable of adapting to those conditions? Wouldn't the second option make even more sense if you're just as uncomfortable outside regardless of what you put your heat on?
I understand that most people aren't in my situation, and they react more like what you do, in that overusing air conditioning weakens their heat tolerance and they are gradually more comfortable in hotter weather, and vice versa with cold weather. However, this only applies up to a certain point before a hard limit is reached. In my case the hard limit is well below most other people's. This works against me in summer but works in my favor in winter, where my acclimatization capabilities are actually pretty robust.
Last edited by Patricius Maximus; 07-13-2012 at 11:22 AM..
Patricious said : '80F? 82F? Is that just the minimum required to keep the house healthy or are you seriously suggesting that's the temperature for human comfort? If that's the latter, I'd say you're out of touch. When we had a summertime power outage some time ago, my entire family experienced those 82F or higher conditions, and no one (and this is a diverse bunch in weather preferences) could stand it, and everyone had to hole up in hotel rooms for 2 days. On the other hand, maybe you meant to say 82F or lower depending on what you can bear ?'
REPLY: The indoor temperature which MOST people find best is between 74-76 f. during the summer according to ASHRAE which is the Industry Bible for HVAC standards , however...if a person can feel comfortable with maintaining a higher indoor temperature...then so much the better because it will cost less and theoretically the a/c system will last longer. IE: I live in NW FLorida and over the course of 3 years living here, I have slowly increased the setting of my thermostat to where i am comfortable sitting in an 80f environment with a small stand alone fan blowing on me as i watch TV for a few hours at night before bedtime . Ill bet most people could feel comfortable at 80 f IF they were sitting still with no activity ; its when you start increasing your activity levels that you have a need for greater cooling.
20F? When push comes to shove 20F isn't going to help anybody, least of all me. When it's 100F or 110F, when you need air conditioning the most, that 20F difference produces an 80F or 90F house. By no stretch of the imagination could I designate that a comfort cooling system. In my view, air conditioning should be fitted to easily get the home to 65F in 100F heat, which should cover all the bases for comfort. That's what I call "ideal". The disadvantages of oversizing (the unit, not the ductwork) are well worth it to me, and the warnings against oversizing seem to assume that air conditioning is just a glorified dehumidifier instead of something designed to effectively cool my house. As you mentioned, there are separate dehumidification systems available.
Few things to consider here :
1. A 20 f. difference between outside and inside temperature feels VERY satisfying when youve been outside in 95 f temp with high humidity in direct sun ..and then walk inside to 75 f and 50-55% relative humidity .
2. If the indoor temp were less than a 20 f. difference from outside, when you walked outside you could very well feel dizzy from the extreme temperature difference especially if your body had been cooled off real good . In fact this occurs with many people who keep their homes too cool then walk outside . Its happened to me going from my overcooled car interior to outside blazing hot temps.
3. Residential Cooling Equipment using refrigerant isnt designed to provide much less than 20 f difference between outside and inside in the engineering of the evaporator , compressor, and condensor . It is however possible to design such a system where a a greater temp. difference (TD) can be maintained but it would require designing the evaporator to be a 4 row or greater construction with suitable compression equipment with matching air cooled condensor ; most residential evaporators are 2-3 rows for comfort applications . There are special environments , commercial and industrial, that require lower levels of humidity be maintained such as large Computer Rooms and various manufacturing applications which would require a 40% RH or lower in which case the indoor temperature has to be maintained lower to accomplish the final RH and/or external dehumidification systems employed . In extreme cases, reheat is necessary...that is...first cooling down the space to achieve the desired RH then heating up the air so the indoor temperature isnt too uncomfortable for occupants (typically to 70 or 72 f) . Reheating also helps drive down the humidity level in a space so this method is seen as having a dual benefit .
4. What some consider 'ideal' may not be ideal to most ; with the design of residential cooling systems...its always what MOST PEOPLE find suitable that is the standard to design around (IE: 74-76f inside) . And that is centered around the 20 f. difference between outside and inside for the most part. Even if the outside temp were 105 f and humid....coming inside to 85 f dehumidified air would be a very welcomed delight to anyone except the most ardent eccentric critic .
5. Design considerations take into account not oversizing the a/c system so proper moisture removal can be had by the cooling equipment...although with the Earth experiencing obviously hotter summers on a continual basis , most HVAC Designers are changing their ways and slightly oversizing cooling equipment especially in the commercial applications where the risk of being sued is a reality from not designating enough cooling equipment capacity . Ive actually been involved in a lawsuit that took place in a large Bank application where the mechancial contractor goofed up on the cooling capacity in addition to installing leaky metal ductwork -- the Board of Directors were not happy campers .
No, the disdain is because many people (including myself) live without A/C. It's not all that hard. Living without heat is unheard of. An 80°F room is not impractical for many people, especially with air moving, though maybe not ideal. A 40°F room is. Typical room temperature is around 70°F. Winter temperatures are much further from normal indoor temperatures than typical summer temperatures. Again, using the Northeast.
I find the opposite to be true. Have lived 8 years with no heating whatsoever in the winter months, and have gone by winters without any problem. Lived without a/c too and it was full of problems. I think where i live a/c is a million times more needed than heating. Of course, where i live haves to do with it (heating will certainly be needed in colder places) and my personal tastes and appartment location (i hate heat and my appartment is a 12floor sauna).
I'm surprised that many people enjoy the heat in the summer. Particularly those who have an AC but set it to a high temp. I suppose people like different temps. But I certainly want to get the most out of my AC and have it keep me as comfortable as possible.
I keep it high so I can deal with the summer here. If I have it too low, I won't acclimate and it will be hot for me whenever I go outside even on a normal day.
One day I will move to somewhere that rarely gets above 75 in the summer. No A/C needed then!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmicstargoat
Oh, I live in Northern Colorado, 40° N. latitude and 5,000 ft. elevation. I was advised when I moved up here that only about 50% of people had A/C and that it really was needed only a couple of weeks in July or August. Subsequently we have had two of the hottest summers since records have been kept. I keep my A/C on 72°-74° and it has been running since early June. If temperatures were EVER to be what the average is, I could live without A/C, but the way things are in this day and time, the temperatures seem to always be above average.
Since the middle of June, we have had 8 days of 100°+ temperatures and 17 days of 95°+, which is unprecedented. The normal highs and lows for June are 81°-85°. It has been hot.
Agreed 100%. If it actually was normal here (only ~10 days above 90F, and I think it's almost double that so far this summer) I wouldn't need any A/C.
Last edited by Nivalis; 07-13-2012 at 02:10 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.
.
).
