Would using a window unit during the day (and shutting off central air) cut my elec bill?
Question:There's always somone home at my house. But the only room used during the day is basically the living room/dining/kitchen which are all together (no walls seperating). Last summer the elec bill reached $400. We live in an area that will get 100 degrees in July/aug. Could cut off the rest of the house and just cool the one area with a window unit. Would this help?
Answers:
Absolutely yes. A single window unit uses 500 - 1440 watts. 500 being the lowest setting.
Leave your window unit on the lowest setting all the time. Don't fluctuate the settings. You wind up using more energy that way.
Use ceiling fans as well to help distribute the air.
A ceiling fan uses 15-95 watts.
36" fan =55watts on high 48" fan=75 watts on high52"fan=90 watts on high
A single floor fan uses 100 watts on high
Get on freecycle.org and look for ceiling fans in your area. Freecycle.org is a place where everything is given free to help keep things out of the landfills.
I hope this helps...BTW: Using central heat & a/c for 12 weeks is the same as leaving your refriderator door open 24/7 365 days.. Pretty amazing, huh!?
Take care & God bless.
Thats what I did here. I too live where it can reach 100 in the summer. Our lightbill has been that high or higher. But only running one window unit has lowered the bill some. Ours is in the bedroom and the rest of the house we use box fans in the windows. It helps...
Where I live, we get horrible humidity as well as the heat of the day. So, what we do is this: we turn on the air conditioning and get the temp down to about 68, at night. Then, we turn up the thermostat to 75 and leave it there. We are not at home, so naturally the windows are closed and the blinds drawn. You'd be surprised how much cooler a home will stay during the day with blinds drawn. When you come home, the temp will have stabilized and it will be just right. That has saved quite a sum of money in the past for us; but lets face it. If we all switched over to solar power, it would be much cheaper to run everything in our household; especially with that summer sunshine.
We are saving up for the solar panels and have made it a goal to get them installed within the next year. It will then save us extra dollars in the long-run and be more towards 'green' and take the burden off the power company as well.
A central air conditioner dehumidifies the entire house to make it comfortable. You most likely have supplies (ducts) that run from the furnace to each room. Locate the dampers on each supply run and either close them totally or semi close the ones that go to the rooms you are not using that much. That will reduce the air flow to those room and yet keep them comfortable and should reduce the operating costs.
We re-balance our ducts each summer and it works well in our 2 story 9 room house.
Also keep the temp around 75 instead of 68
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