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My 800 SF, 1BR condo had built-in A/C. I used to keep it cranked to 68 degrees all summer and it only bumped my electric bill up $20. Well worth it to stay cool
It depends on the efficiency of the system. I have a very efficient DC inverter mini-split system cooling my house. I use less than 1/4 the electricity of the window units I had the first year I owned the house.
Depends on alot of things. I lived in a duplex that had central air.. This was an old duplex that was brick exterior with landscaping that kept it in the shade much of the time.. I don't think I ever had a power bill over $100.. And this is SC, where it gets horribly hot and muggy.
Now, I have a 1700 sq ft house, sits in the sun all day.. I wind up with power bills approaching $200 a month.
I think the question here is do window A/C units cost more to run than a central unit in an apartment. Yes, most window units use more electricity, including the high energy index units, than a 14 SEER central unit.
A few years back I built a 2400sq ft house for a guy that owns an appliance outlet. We didn't put any HVAC in the house. WE did put numerous 220V outlets in specific rooms. His utility bill is far cheaper according to him than if he used a central unit. He runs only the units where they are at in the house and leaves the others off. After the sun goes down and things start to cool off, he cranks up the bedroom units to get the bedrooms cool and when they go to bed, turns the others off. Works for him but it seems to be a lot of work for little return. Another plus he quotes is that when the window units die or become a problem, they are dirt cheap to replace than central unit. You also hardly ever lose complete HVAC like a single central unit going down with multiple window units.
It depends on the efficiency of the system. I have a very efficient DC inverter mini-split system cooling my house. I use less than 1/4 the electricity of the window units I had the first year I owned the house.
These are the most efficient units on the market. If you ever have a situation where you need to cool a single room, especially if it's not ducted, there's no more perfect solution. In our house, we have 3 floors but the cheap builders (aside from putting in a water heater that wouldn't fill HALF of the bath tub) decided the daylight basement, so really just the bottom floor, didn't need central heat or AC. I'll be the judge of that, thanks. So I put in a ductless mini-split from Mitsubishi with a SEER rating around 31, which is ridiculous. I have been incredibly impressed by how well it works, and how quickly, too. It just didn't seem like it would work that well, and when I first heard about it, I was looking at it like really? I want this thing on my wall? Looks kind of ugly... but then when I realized what a fantastic solution it was, how inexpensive the system is to run, and how well it worked, I was sold. Plus, there was no other good option, we couldn't really duct an entire 800 square foot basement that wasn't already ducted.
My system that powers the upper 2 floors is a top-rated variable speed Trane that adjusts by increments of 1%, so it's as efficient as a system like that one can get and it's still only about 25 SEER, still an amazing rating, but nothing like the ductless.
The energy efficiency of these units makes an enormous difference. We also run AC probably I'm guessing 5-6 months of the year? I can't say I honestly know as it's 2018, so when you set an HVAC system to 72 during the day and 66 at night, it'll do whatever it does to make sure that happens. All I do know for sure is that before I installed the system, the obviously-no-standards previous home owners didn't have ANY AC in the house. I assume they previously lived in the middle of the desert in a tent or something, because this house is built very energy efficient, so by mid-April when it was only about 70 degrees outside it was already upper 70s inside. By the time I got my quote back and installation was nearly ready, it was more like mid-May and it was hitting 80 degrees in the house despite only being 76 or 77 outside. How they could have tolerated a summer without AC is news to me.
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