What cost more to run? Lights or air conditioner?

Question

What cost more to run? Lights or air conditioner?

Answer 1

The AC by far uses the most power in the summer.

My electric bill is $280 for a 2 bedroom apt in Dallas in July.

It is only $120 in the winter. ( difference of +$160)

I also have electric hot water and electric heat.

Being in Dallas, we dont use the heat much, even in winter.

The refrigerator is the next biggest cost, followed by electric hot water, then lights, and computers, TVs, etc.

I always have several computers running simulations 24x7 which probably uses ( on average) as much power as all of the lights.

If you turned on all the lights in the house, it would be less than 1000W, which at $0.10 per kWH, which would be $2.40 per day, or $72 per month.   You probably only use 1/2 of that at best  ~ $35.    So lighting is not even on the same scale as the AC ( in the summer).   AC is 5X the lighting cost.

You can replace your light bulbs with compact flourecent, which produces better light color, at 1/3 the electric cost.

They also last a lot longer as well.   With those, you can reduce your electric light cost to about $12 per month, which will pay for the bulbs in a few months.

Answer 2

A small window A/C unit uses much less power than all the lights at a baseball stadium. You see, even an answer can be as meaningless as the question.

Answer 3

whichever one you use more of

Answer 4

How many lights and what size?  What size AC?