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Old 07-22-15, 12:22 PM   #1
jetto-setto
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Default Air conditioning strategy help

Hey guys. I live in inland SoCal and it's obviously gotten quite hot here recently. Last month the best I managed was 30kwh a day average, but admittedly I've gotten a lot better since then and have averaged a much better 12kwh a day thus far in July.

What I'm concerned about here is the days where the windows open all night doesn't really help. I've had a few of those in the past week - even with the windows open all evening and night, and the outside temperature supposedly a fair bit lower than the inside temp, the humidity and lack of air flow just doesn't let the indoors get comfortable.

The first couple of days like that resulted in a usage of over 20kwh for the day, as the A/C needed to kick on several times in the afternoon to keep the indoors below 80.

The same would've likely happened yesterday, but upon seeing the temperature had only fallen to 76 overnight yesterday morning, I decided to blast the A/C and get it down to 73 ish and then shut it off for the rest of the day. That worked, and we managed a much better 14.5kwh for the day.

So my question is this: with the burst A/C method, what time of day should I be doing it? Nighttime comfort has been a pretty mixed bag, so I thought about experimenting with opening windows in the evening, then closing them at night and blasting the A/C for an hour or so before sleeping and seeing whether that can hold through the night and the next day. Whether that'll work or not, I don't know.

Of course, days where the nighttime temp/air flow will allow the house to cool down adequately with the windows open and without the A/C on, we'll stick to that. But if it's only getting down to 70 at night, it really doesn't seem to work well enough given that daytime temperatures are usually above 90 and often 100+.

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Old 07-22-15, 01:05 PM   #2
zorander6
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With that methodology you'd probably be best running it between 2 and 3 am in the morning. Latest around 5am. Reason being is you will loose some heat (minimal as it may be) overnight. Downside of course is you'd have to get up early.

Just my opinion no math done.
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Old 07-24-15, 08:13 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jetto-setto View Post
Hey guys. I live in inland SoCal and it's obviously gotten quite hot here recently. Last month the best I managed was 30kwh a day average, but admittedly I've gotten a lot better since then and have averaged a much better 12kwh a day thus far in July.

What I'm concerned about here is the days where the windows open all night doesn't really help. I've had a few of those in the past week - even with the windows open all evening and night, and the outside temperature supposedly a fair bit lower than the inside temp, the humidity and lack of air flow just doesn't let the indoors get comfortable.

The first couple of days like that resulted in a usage of over 20kwh for the day, as the A/C needed to kick on several times in the afternoon to keep the indoors below 80.

The same would've likely happened yesterday, but upon seeing the temperature had only fallen to 76 overnight yesterday morning, I decided to blast the A/C and get it down to 73 ish and then shut it off for the rest of the day. That worked, and we managed a much better 14.5kwh for the day.

So my question is this: with the burst A/C method, what time of day should I be doing it? Nighttime comfort has been a pretty mixed bag, so I thought about experimenting with opening windows in the evening, then closing them at night and blasting the A/C for an hour or so before sleeping and seeing whether that can hold through the night and the next day. Whether that'll work or not, I don't know.

Of course, days where the nighttime temp/air flow will allow the house to cool down adequately with the windows open and without the A/C on, we'll stick to that. But if it's only getting down to 70 at night, it really doesn't seem to work well enough given that daytime temperatures are usually above 90 and often 100+.
I've found that I can't bring an effective reduction(or increase in the cold months) in indoor temperature unless it is over 10 degrees difference between the inside and outside. With high moisture in the air, it's almost pointless to open the windows because the added moisture gives the AC more work to do.

The sun crests the horizon at about 5am in the northern US in June and July where I live and the sun clears the shade of my neighbors houses and temp starts to rise at 6am, temperature steadily drops overnight until then. So I run my AC for the duration that I need it based on the recent and forecasted weather using my programmable thermostat.

The reality is that most people are more bugged about high temperature when they are trying to sleep then they are using the computer, reading a book, watching TV, or other non-exercise activities. If you wait until an hour from sundown and then have your AC setback start up its raging flames of cooling, you'll have a good compromise between night time comfort and energy usage. The extended reality of that is that you probably will need to figure out through experimentation how early you really need that unit to start and run before you can go to bed and have it be comfortable enough and still on its way to being more comfortable to remain sleeping.

The hotter the AC condensor coil (outdoor unit) is, the less efficient it is in three ways. It will reject less total heat to the outside, it consumes more energy because the compressor has more work to do even though less is getting done inside the house, and with less total heat leaving to the outside, less dehumidification is happening per hour of runtime. I'm comfortable enough in my house to run the AC at night but with a roommate in the past, the AC ran during the day. It's a comfort issue, some adapt well to the heat and others really can't or aren't willing to expose themselves to heat in order to acclimatize the body to it.

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