What's the best way to conserve power from A/C but still stay cool?

Question

What's the best way to conserve power from A/C but still stay cool?

Answer 1

Move North.

Answer 2

Put insulation boards over the windows that are in direct sunlight (be it morning or evening sun). It makes the house darker but also drops the temp a good 5 to 10 degrees or more. Also, if you are speaking of window units and not central cooling, close off rooms of your house that you will not be using and only cool the room (s) you will be in. This also keeps it cooler in that area and your a/c will not have to work as hard having to cool parts of the house no one is in. We do this at our house and our summer electricity bill averages 100.00, where as others in the same area as us are anywhere from 250.00 to 350.00.

Answer 3

Set it a few degrees higher than you normally would (77 instead of 75)

Turn it off at night when it gets a little cooler out or if you are going to be out of the house for a long time (like vacation or something)

Answer 4

Set the A/C to OFF.  Buy ice in large economical blocks, and direct fans across them to focus the cooling where it is effective,

It is likely more efficient overall for you to buy ice made in large scale than to run small A/C units.   Even including getting the ice and bringing it home and the electricity to run personal fans.

The melt water should be fairly pure, so can be used for other things, avoiding paying for city water to an extent.

You also can use the coolness in the city water and a "swamp cooler," but the cost of the city water may offset the savings in refrigeration power.  Nice if you have a lovely cold flowing well for your swamp cooler!!

Answer 5

i do fine without an ac, fans, ice cubes and open windows and keeping the lights off during the day keep my house pretty cool even in 90 degree heat

Answer 6

It is said that if you apply exterior shade screen on the outside of your window, it is "up to 7 times more effective" at cooling your house than other forms of interior shade like blinds or tinting. You need to stop the heat before it enters or hits the window. These screens can cut A/C use by up to 40%. There are also new fasteners out there that allow the average person to install these screens in a matter of hours. Windows contribute about 48% of the heat gain to the average house, so if you block the heat at that point, you stop the heat at the source you eliminate most of the problem.

Just search for " exteriorblindsandshades" on the net as you will find lots of addition info on the subject.

Answer 7

Try to block the sun from outside of the window so that it does not get inside your house if you can't do that,  reflect the sunlight from inside the window with a piece of little aluminum foil and perhaps some foam insulation behind it.  Once the sunlight moves in beyond the inner pane of glass in your house you own the heat..

Anytime you spray water on a hot surface, the water evaporates as the surface cools

Fans will keep your skin cool from the breeze but in a hot and humid climates an air-conditioner removes humidity from the room itself as it drips outside.  If the air is dry air,you will feel cooler.

I still believe in wearing a propeller hat that blows down.

Answer 8

Keep the sun out of the room as much as possible.  Put the air conditioner on the "Energy Saver" setting, if you have that.  That way it will turn on and off by itsself depending on the temperature of the room.

Answer 9

Some of the advice posted is good, but the only thing you really need to know is that a/c units only can cool a room down by 19.6 degrees, after that the unit will just continually run wasting energy.  That is probably what the "energy setting" the other guy was talking about.

Answer 10

Use lots of fans! According to the Global Warming wackos its going to get alot hotter.

Answer 11

Turn it OFF and acclimate!

Answer 12

In the middle of August my A/C struggles to keep pace with the 100+ heat outside, and I managed to pull ahead in the race when I started using those expensive flourescent s***w in bulbs all the greenies get misty eyed over.   The reason they work better is because the energy they are NOT wasting is not being burned up as heat in the house, which the A/C would otherwise have to recool.

Answer 13

Put the air on low just enough to keep u cool and close all the windows, doors, etc. closed and try not to get to much light i yourhouse because it might make your house hotter if its hot out side. Also unplug things you are not using because the energy will go up into the air, rise then heat up the air from all the energy you are useing and when u leave the house turn off all the lights.

Answer 14

Close and cover your windows during the day, open them up and get a breeze at night.  How well it works depends on where you live (temperature at night)

Oh yeah, and INSULATE any way you can.

Answer 15

I put mine on sleep mode when I goto bed. I also use the energy saver feature that is built in. I turn it up a few degrees too, 71 instead of 68.

Furthermore, when I bought my ac unit, which is one of those window mount ones, I bought one with a very good EER rating. That really helps a lot, the eer rating is how effecient the unit is.

Lastly, you can seal up your house real good, especially around the ac unit its self. I used that expandable foam to seal up all the cracks and crevases in the house.

In addition to that, Insulating your house better really helps, it helps keep  the cool air inside your house from escaping which helps keep the unit from having to work more to cool the house down.