Anyone in the Valley using their air conditioners yet? (home, refrigerator)

[matyoka]

Originally Posted by CheyDee

I hate the heat. If my a/c had a setting for "snow", that's where I'd set it.

Come up to Montana, we don't use A/C at all and there's snow all over... still.

[azdr0710]

haven't had either heat or refrigeration on for many weeks now....

safety and security allowing, open your windows and secured doors all night for FREE AIR CONDITIONING!!!.....then close them by 9 or 10am or so....go out and then come home around 4 or 5 and it'll feel like you had the AC on all day.....

[pandaundercover]

Ours runs around 9pm until about midnight, to get the house from 78 or 80, down to 74, so we can sleep. Same way I'd run it in the summer, except, of course, it'd cost way more. First week we've had it running since October though. We don't even run the heat in the winters... cause... "winter" out here doesn't really qualify to even be called a winter. haha

[pandaundercover]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

The time of use with demand is quite a bit cheaper than straight time of use. They ding you for each Kw of peak DEMAND during peak periods. So if you can be really careful about not running appliances at the same time, you can save even more. I used to have a load controller that did this automatically, but it conked out. I've blown it a couple times and got burned, but overall, I do pretty well keeping both peak use and peak demand under control. Also, I have a 16 SEER ac. My bill went down about 30% when I got that installed.

Absolutely. The use of off peak hours in the summer, makes a huge difference. 99% of the time, I don't even do laundry til off peak hours, year round. Lights, usually never go on til after 6pm, though I try to stretch it to 7 (off peak begins). But still, 20%+ of our energy is used during on peak... which I can only assume is from 2 fridgerators, laptops, a tv...

[ReadyFreddy]

panda- If you have SRP, off peak begins at 8pm in the summer.

I was still curious about what "time of use with demand" is so I went to the SRP site and don't see anything like that, just the "time of use" plan. I'm guessing it's an APS thing?

I knew several people that saved like 50% on their summer SRP bills by severely pre-cooling their houses during low rate hours and then setting the A/C as high as like 86 in high rate hours. They found that if they got their house down to like 62 in the morning, so it had time to be that low for hours before the high rate time, their houses would hold the cold to some extent across most of the 1-8pm high rate zone. I hated being at their houses. It was either freezing or burning to me, depending on the time of day. If I'm miserable at home I leave and go shopping, which is way more expensive than just cooling my house to a comfy temp!

[mjd2k]

Originally Posted by robabeatle

Soak the blankets in water and you have an old school evaporative cooler.

My trick is similiar to yours. I soak my tshirt and shorts in the sink, then hope to fall asleep before they dry.
Around 8 or 9, I have been turning on the ac for about 20 minutes to get the temp from 79 to 73. Then open windows. Stays cool all night with a few fans.

[observer53]

Originally Posted by mjd2k

My trick is similiar to yours. I soak my tshirt and shorts in the sink, then hope to fall asleep before they dry.
Around 8 or 9, I have been turning on the ac for about 20 minutes to get the temp from 79 to 73. Then open windows. Stays cool all night with a few fans.

You're doing this NOW, or in the summer??

[cab591]

We haven't had ours on since October. Through the winter, windows and doors stayed closed. House stayed in the mid 70's, dipping into the 60's overnight. I think the coldest morning we had was 63. Now that it's warmed up, we open all the doors and windows during the day (the breeze is great), and keep bedroom windows open overnight. Hopefully we won't have to start up anything until May.

This'll be my first summer in Phoenix, so I guess I'll see how I cope.

[winterpromise31]

I haven't turned on my AC yet. I love the $95 electric bills and try to make them last as long as possible! We usually don't turn our AC on until May.

[ReadyFreddy]

I try not to use A/C until May but it seems like there are always some really hot days in April and I break down. But March? Never.