Asking about heat control inside the home -- not for me, for small susceptible animals

[jeff2023]

@wit-nit ... I asked one real estate agent if it's possible to focus the ac system on only one or two rooms, in part because I don't need every space nice and cold, in part it might save on the bill, and in part because I think it would better allow the system to focus on that one or two rooms. His response was that the ac systems work thoughout the house with no option to turn on or off any one room. He said it's "more efficient" that way. Are you able to close / turn off ac to some rooms? To help save on bills as well as get that one room better temps?

[wit-nit]

Originally Posted by jeff2023

@wit-nit ... I asked one real estate agent if it's possible to focus the ac system on only one or two rooms, in part because I don't need every space nice and cold, in part it might save on the bill, and in part because I think it would better allow the system to focus on that one or two rooms. His response was that the ac systems work thoughout the house with no option to turn on or off any one room. He said it's "more efficient" that way. Are you able to close / turn off ac to some rooms? To help save on bills as well as get that one room better temps?

Yes you can close off some vents to the room but it's not advisable. Less efficiency, strain on the unit, dry-out furniture, odors, are all possibilities with closing a room off for a long period of time. It really won't save much if any on bills.

Your concerns look like a mini-split, ductless system would work for you. Have a AC dealer come out and look at your situation and give you some options.

[KurtAZ]

We just run our AC like normal, if you close off some rooms and the heat leaks to the rest of the house, your AC will keep trying to run harder to regulate the temp in the house.

Like I said, in emergencies, we have a HiSense Portable and extended the exhaust tube so it can reach a window. If the power goes out, we hook this up and fire up a small Westinghouse Generator to power it (doubles as our camping generator as well). Again, this is for emergencies only because the home's AC keeps up no problem.

[jeff2023]

Nice. That generator is standard gasoline operated? Is it more than capable of keeping your portable ac unit running for several hours (along with a few essential devices)?

[KurtAZ]

Originally Posted by jeff2023

Nice. That generator is standard gasoline operated? Is it more than capable of keeping your portable ac unit running for several hours (along with a few essential devices)?

About 14 hours, runs on Gas, it will power up to ~4000W. You can run an extension cord and it will power small appliances but not the whole house. My Sister has a feed built into her house in PA where their whole house generator can hook up and power the whole house if needed but those are in the $10k+ range. We haven't had many outages where I live (our grid is adjacent to a few Data Centers and they have priority power due to Emergency Systems housed in them) so can't justify the need for a whole house system. Those are usually fed by natural gas or propane.