Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I've never really felt the need to have A/C in this climate in Alberta. I guess this may stem from having lived abroad in much warmer countries where it is actually a necessity as the daytime highs and overnight lows would frequently hover near 35/25 for much of the year. Here it seems a bit much to invest a few thousand dollars plus the monthly opex to have your home 2-3 degrees cooler on the 5-6 days a year where we are at or around 30 degrees. The nights always seem to drop down to 10-12 degrees even on the hottest days, providing a nice natural cooling breeze.
What would someone expect the average monthly cost to run a CAC system in a typical Calgary house be from June-Sept?
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My home is on the NE corner of a townhouse complex. It gets ridiculous hot as it cannot get airflow. I tried one summer to deal with the heat with fans, open windows, reflector window film, running the HVAC fan to try and circulate the heat... it didn't work very well. In fact, some nights, my bedroom was 26-27C with fans on and windows open until around 2 AM even if it was half that temperature outside. Somehow this unit was like a car with all the windows up. My unit is consistently hotter inside than the outside on many summer days.
Yet on the other hand, I used to own a NW facing unit downtown. I never once needed AC because somehow I got great breezes through my unit. It felt like I had AC with windows open even though I didn't have it.
I got AC in my current home as a future planning decision. I didn't want a potentially pregnant wife sweltering in a hot home, not did I want an infant to do so. When I move into a new home that doesn't have AC, I would evaluate if AC is necessary. If it can cool down by catching a good breeze, I'd save the cash. But if the home traps heat like my current one does, I'd get AC for sure.
Now I don't know if this is completely accurate, but for my home which has approximately 2000 sq ft of usable space (including basement), I think I see my overall utilities fluctuate approximately 30-50 bucks at most. But I think that is because my bill includes all my utilities. In the winter I use gas to heat the home, which is replaced by higher electricity usage when I use the AC and vice versa.