Does it cost more money to turn my air conditioning on and off than just leaving it on?
Question:Its a box unit and I live in an apartment
Answers:
There's two parts to that question.
There used to be a thing called "peak demand limiting" Utility companies in the US used to create, distribute and sell electricity to consumers, so they used to reward people for turning stuff on and leaving it on by establishing a baseline and charging you a per-hour rate for your baseline use.
Well, if you got up in the morning, opened your fridge, turned your AC on, did some laundry, ironed clothes and used a bunch of electricity all at once, you created a surge of demand in the system, or a PEAK, and you got penalized for it by getting charged a higher rate for the month.
Now, most of the power companies have sold off their power plants and don't need you to conserve energy, and they don't care how much you overload the system, they just make money when you use electricity. So the trick to saving money now, is to leave stuff off as much as you can tolerate.
The other part of the question is how long it takes to heat up a "hot" apartment when you get home. Your box air conditioner can probably cool the air down quickly, but it will take another 2-3 hours to cool down the walls, the furniture, carpet, etc.
So- for the sake of energy costs leave it off. For the sake of comfort leave the thermostat on, just turn it up when you leave and turn it down when you get home.
My dad owns an air conditioning repair shop. He's always said it's cheaper to leave it on, just turn the thermostat up.
Sandy
I've always wondered that. I have a box unit as well. Don't you just love how it's freezing in the room with the unit and a broiler room in the others!? At least mine is.
I think it's best to just leave it on. But I don't. In fact, I just turned mine off.
It costs less to leave it on all the time at a reasonable temp
ive always been told that cause it takes so much to cool the area again after its been turned off--makes sense to me
I have heard that it takes more energy to cool a hot room than it does to keep a room at a stable condition... I think the reason for this is because the compressor runs constantly at the begining to change the temp to that desired... but once it is there the compressor doesnt kick in as much, using less energy.
yes because when you turn it back on it has to work twice as hard again to get all the humidity out and make it nice and cool. leave it run and just turn it on low.
Not during mild weather, but after this summer heats up it will.
It sort of depends on conditions, but in general if your apartment is small and easily cooled it may be best to leave it on. When it's off, the temp and humidity burden to resume back to cool temps may overcome the savings. If your gone for more than 10 hours, then shut it down. You could test it on a hot day... time how long it takes to cool the place from 90 down to 74 or whatever. Make a judgment based on that. Another option would be a heavy-duty timer to turn the unit on an hour or two before you get home.
In most cases it is recommended to leave a window unit turned on low while you are out to keep your apartment from heating up and stressing your refrigerator, not to mention your electronics. Plus when you come home and have to run the unit on high to cool the apartment down it requires more power than if you had left it on low. I have been told that turning electrical appliances on and off stresses the switches or whatever. The surg of power when a unit is first turned on is strong too get the appliance going. I'm sure a more knowledgable person can tell us more about that side, but if you live where the heat requires the use of an AC unit, it is probably better for you to leave it on low, maybe turn it up when you get home and turn it off when the heat subsides.
buy one with a high efficiency rating
Once you get the humidity out of the room/area it is better to just turn up the thermostat up to 78/78 than to turn off the unit. When you turn off the unit the humidity will again start to build up this causing the unit to run longer to bring the humidity back down.
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