How do you use your air conditioning?

This will be predominantly for people not living in the south but feel free to comment nonetheless

It starts to get hot here beginning in the spring. Summer temps in and around the 90's are normal during the day. It was 100 degrees last week. Sometimes we go through days where it's cooler and often it cools down nicely at night. Temps in the range of 55-65 degrees at night are not uncommon.

I noticed this year, because I've been working on the far end of our property close to a neighbouring home, that their air conditioning hasn't shut off since the spring. So I asked a few of my friends, do you turn it on in spring and off in the fall, or do like we do, only use it when it's hot? They, like my neighbours, leave it on all summer.

Last night I walked outside, as I will do every night for that purpose, found the temp was comfortable, shut the air off and cranked the windows open.  It seems that we might be out of the ordinary. butI find it strange (not that we're out of the ordinary) that people would be using a high energy using device when it's clearly not required.

Are we out of the ordinary?

My window units have a temperature setting.   They run only when needed.

My old one ran the fan all the time.

Like you,I often open windows.

We only fire up the a/c if it gets too hot in the house to be comfortable, otherwise we'll rather have the windows open. That said, we don't have the kind of humidity one gets in the South, so we don't generally turn on the a/c unless we're looking at 80-85 degrees in the house and the cats are starting to melt.

Nope. Our temp dropped to 70 the other night and I whipped open the windows and flipped on the house fan. We have one of those whole house monsters in the hallway ceiling. I tuned it up a few years ago and now it scares the children.

I have a thermometer to monitor the temp outside versus inside. My rule is if the inside is three degrees higher than outside, the windows open and the house fan goes on. I may also judge it on how it feels outside.

I can't sleep at all at night if it's above around 75 or so. We've been at or near 100 for the last two months so it's runs nonstop basically from mid March until mid October usually. We usually have a month in the spring and one in the fall that we can have the house open using no A/C or heat. 

When we still lived in the rust-belt, we’d typically have a week or 2 of “open window” weather during spring & fall. The rest of the time the HVAC was set to either heat or cool as needed. 

Fortunately down here in the south we’re not having the hot temps like you are. :-p

Edit: To clarify, one significant reason we keep the windows closed is dust/dirt/pollen/sand(down here). I also won’t leave 1sr-floor windows open overnight since that’s an easy target for burglars. 

I think most people are just too lazy, to wimpy to put up with any humidity or simply unaware.

We only need air a few weeks a year.  If it cools at night, just open things up, maybe use fans if needed.

Another consideration is bad neighborhoods.  Not a great idea to open up the house at night in those areas.  Of course, if you have bars on all you windows...

In the summer, during the day, we're running it all the time. That doesn't mean it is running all the time, that means that when the house warms up to (whatever I have it set at, usually 72-75) it kicks on until it has cooled to that temperature. At night we'll open the up stairs windows if it is cool, but not the downstairs. We don't turn off the AC, but it is inefficient upstairs anyways so having them open makes it run less often. It is also a humidty control thing; my MIL has MS and when she visits (which is often enough) she needs it to be dry inside.

We also have a skunk problem, so we don't like to leave a bunch open all the time. In the spring and fall, we don't have the AC on that often.

We have two window units (old house). One in the main living room and one in the upstairs bedroom. Bedroom gets shut off during the day (8am-6pm) because we are not in there and it isn't quite up to the task anyway. The downstairs unit runs constantly from june to september usually, and as needed in the spring and fall. Summers here are often around 110 in the pm sometimes closer to 115 for a couple weeks and lows overnight in the 80s mostly. We usually are in the 100s by late april until mid october. No humidity unless it rains, but wind and dust keep the windows shut most of the time.

My home central A/C runs pretty much constantly from mid-May through August.  

I have the Northeast Corridor (Amtrak, Septa, ConRail) rail line on one side of me. I-95 on the other with near continuous crotch-rockets racing up and down until about 3AM.  Open windows means I'd never get to sleep.

Plus, the way the house is oriented along with the proximity to neighboring houses and foliage, air flow with the windows open kinda sucks and a whole-house fan to suck air in and blow it out through the attic isn't quite feasible. 

Fortunately, it's a small house and combined with a programmable thermostat, it doesn't really cost a lot to run the A/C.

Suprf1y said:

This will be predominantly for people not living in the south but feel free to comment nonetheless

It starts to get hot here beginning in the spring. Summer temps in and around the 90's are normal during the day. It was 100 degrees last week. Sometimes we go through days where it's cooler and often it cools down nicely at night. Temps in the range of 55-65 degrees at night are not uncommon.

I noticed this year, because I've been working on the far end of our property close to a neighbouring home, that their air conditioning hasn't shut off since the spring. So I asked a few of my friends, do you turn it on in spring and off in the fall, or do like we do, only use it when it's hot? They, like my neighbours, leave it on all summer.

Last night I walked outside, as I will do every night for that purpose, found the temp was comfortable, shut the air off and cranked the windows open.  It seems that we might be out of the ordinary. butI find it strange (not that we're out of the ordinary) that people would be using a high energy using device when it's clearly not required.

Are we out of the ordinary?

I agree, unless needed ( and that starts at over 80 degrees with high humidity) my windows are open and the A/C is off. 

Now SWMBO needs it cooler but I leave before she gets up.  

Pacific Northwest; We started getting into the 90s by sometime in May (sporadically) this year, more solidly in June, and right now it's supposed to be either side of 90 for as far as the forecast goes out.

We have the thermostat set to 75, which is slightly warmer than is super-comfy. We usually bump it down a degree or two when spending time in the house, but don't want the house getting roasty so we cap it at 75 during the day.

It usually cools to the 60s or into the high 50s at night, so with the upstairs starting out not-horrifyingly-hot, we shut off the HVAC and open the windows at night. If we have one of those weird runs where it's not cooling off at night, we'll go with A/C.

We just got central A/C a couple of years ago, and love it. 90s is uncomfortable without A/C and the bedroom's upstairs. Had a portable A/C unit, but it just didn't make much headway on dragging the two joined upstairs rooms down from hot, and it was too annoying to run all the time. We spent one hot spell basically locked in a downstairs office with a window unit and the three animals. Getting the rest of the house back was fantastic.

Its "on" all the time from probably mid april through october.  That doesn't mean its running.  Its programed to be keep it at 74 during 'at home' hours, and not to exceed 85 during working hours (we are gone).  If it gets cool outside I will happily open the windows and let in some cool air.  Or turn on the bathroom fans to encourage some cool air to come in through the windows.

Heating is basically the inverse of that.

In reply to Ransom :

What I dislike about central air is the use of heat ducts.  Unlike heat which rises, cold air settles. The only way A/C works is to use a lot of extra energy to blow it up so it can settle back over the people in the room. 

Zoned A/C uses high mounted coolers to distribute the cool air making it more efficient.  

However central air/zoned air still uses one big expensive compressor. Even if you buy the most efficient one in a few years it will be using more energy than the newest systems.  

Most people use their A/C until it can’t be repaired any more.  That’s 20-30 years in some cases. So for 15-25 years the home owner is wasting money on an obsolete system.  

I run a single small portable unit probably a month out of the year..  not the most efficient thing but it only pulls 1200 watts.  Doesn't stay hot for long here. 

I do run it all night, but my plan's 10pm to 8am energy rate is so low that it doesn't hurt much to do so.

Only when I'm home, and the room is hot, like above 80. A/C uses electricity, and electricity costs money.

We use it on an as-needed basis, but sometimes (like last week) that means it can be on for days straight. Any time it cools off enough, though, the windows are open and the whole-house fan is on. We love the feeling of fresh air. But I know plenty of people who basically set their thermostats at 72 and never touch them and never open a window, no matter the season.

We have the thermostat set to around 71-72 and leave it there. Here in OKC it's so windy and dusty the fine red clay still settles on the INSIDE of the windows and ledges. So if it's that nice, we typically just go sit on the patio with the dogs, sometimes we open the windows.

There are some points in the spring and fall when the AC is on during the afternoon, and get's switched over to heat in the evening.

pregnant wife and a 3 year old in the house, we keep it close to 70 at all times. Townhouse so its always warmer upstairs hence why it sits around 70 most of the time to keep things from getting stifling when we are trying to sleep.   The unit kicks on and off as needed to maintain temperature and the smart thermostat lets it warm up a few degrees when we are away from home. 

I use it when I feel like it. No specific temp range, simply as needed. Lately it has been non stop because it’s been miserable the past few weeks in Kentucky. 

Most of my friends have some sort of weird dick swinging contest over who can hold out the longest before turning their AC. Berrrrrrrrrrkley that. 

Ours is easy.  We set the High-Low temps on the thermostat and leave it the heck alone. 

Couple pertinent facts.  I live in central Georgia, 90 miles south of Atlanta. We always have over 60 successive days above 90* every summer, often 30 successive above 95*. That's successive - as in a row.  We usually see triple digits a few times each summer.  Dew points typically stay in the upper 70s to upper 80s - it's humid as hell.  We are too far from the coast for wind. Late summer (late July, August) we often have lows near 80, highs near 100, no rain but high humidity for long stretches. 

I grew up in this area without AC. We had an attic fan and ceiling fans but didn't have AC until 1986 when my parents divorced and had to sell the house. I remember laying flat on my back in the floor under a fan and it being too hot to move.

I love having the windows open. From October from through April I'm as likely to have the windows open as closed as long as it feels good outside, even if it's cold enough I have a fire in the fire place. If the windows are open I turn off the system.

But if it's hot out - the AC is on. By "on" I mean the heat pump system is obeying the programmable thermostat and that means it can use AC or heat if the interior temps require it. If we're away during the day it can ramp up to 75*, if we're home it's 70*, at night it's 68*.  I've tried allowing higher temps but the system burns as much energy trying to bring it down from 85 to 70 in the evenings as it does maintaining 75 then cooling it only 5 degrees.

I'm a big guy and hot natured. Having lived with no AC, I will be as cool as I want in my house. There are 2 things that are my 1st priorities as long as I'm paying the bills. I will buy what I want to eat, and I will be comfortable with the temp of my house.

As a side note - houses built in the l;ast 40 years are not designed to be without AC (at least in the south.) Old houses had systems in place to encourage air movement and convection to draw heat out - big windows, tall ceilings, second floor halls with doors or windows that allowed heat to rise out.  A house from 1900 here will be 20* cooler inside than a house from 2000 on a hot day without AC.  So a lot of how you use your system may be dictated by your archetecture.

Pete Gossett said:

When we still lived in the rust-belt, we’d typically have a week or 2 of “open window” weather during spring & fall. The rest of the time the HVAC was set to either heat or cool as needed. 

Ditto.

It does cool down at night, but the humidity will be 80% to 100% as well. And we have an interstate about 1000'  behind the house, which is coming down hill into a reduced speed zone, so we get the sound of the trucks accelerating up  the hill and using the jake brake coming down the hill. The house is very well insulated, so the A/C doesn't run very often at night anyway. Why open it up to the humidity, dust and pollen? 

I tried to open windows and turn the AC off when it's nice out or at night, but my normally cold wife turns into a furnace at night and if she thinks it's too hot in the middle of the night you better believe it I'm going to be woken up to hear about it.

We leave the AC even if it's a day or two of nice weather. As soon as we have longer cold streak I'll turn it off.

With our humidity, ours runs a lot.

From late June through September, there will be weeks where it never shuts down because the house never reaches the set temp. This year hasn't been too bad so far. ATM it's set to 72 degrees. As the outside temps go up, so will the set temp. It's more about the humidity than it is the temperature.