More cost effective?

Question

Which is more costeffective, running an air conditioner or 3 large fans and a dehumidifyer?

I have an air conditioner that we pulled out of storage; helps cool off the living room, where it's mounted, but not the rest of the apartments, especially the bedrooms, even when we leave the doors open. It's older and doesn't appear to have an energy saver setting on it.

Would it be more or less expensive just running three fans (one in the living room and one in each bedroom) and maybe a dehumidifyer (obviously to make it less muggy in the apartment) and just keep the air conditioner off all together?

Answer 1

a dehumidifier uses as much power as an air conditioner, since it's basically the same thing.

one air conditioner will not be able to cool "other apartments" unless it's sized right. figure 5 thousand BTU cooling per room.

Answer 2

it depends on your comfort level and where you live. in texas, fans don't cut it. in the dep south, (us of a), you have high humidity and high heat. in phoenix, they can use evaporitive cooling due to the low humidity.

se if you can clean the filter on the old unit and i would also suggest looking at another window unit for the bed room, or maybe just a bigger window unit. check the outlets and plugs for correct voltage befor you buy anything.

but it's really all up to you and what you are comfortable with. most small inductive motors, (fans), dont use much electricty, but their power factor is very high. how that translates into watts aka kwatts, i'm not certain. i do know most modern appliances with inductive motors have caps built in to lower their power factor. i don't know about 20.00 dollar box fans though.

window units will use the most wattage though, (the evil compressor), so you want it to be as efficient as possible! check that filter and go see what else is avaliable. (check your outlets for vlotage before buying anything!)

one other thing. if your wiindow unit is never reaching a set point and cycling off, well that's not good. see if you can find a name plate on your unit and compare it to other new units for your square footage. the point is, you should be able to be comfy and efficient with a mix of one window ac and a box/ceiling fan or two. GL with it!

Answer 3

the fan is less cost effective then the AC unit

Answer 4

Well...the fans will generate heat,so will the dehumidifier. If there is no way to remove the heat..it will just get hotter.

Check out Walmart and Lowes or Home Depot. They have 5000btu window units for less that $80. Each one will cool a room. If each room has a window--I would put a window unit in it.

These new units are very efficient., and they plug into regular house current -120vac. You may then need to use a fan to circulate the cooling.