Central air conditioning

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

I'm a 23 kind of guy. It feels too cold to me at anything less.

we're odd, perhaps.
18 is our usual go to point for a comfortable household temperature summer or winter.
although in winter we drop it to 16 at bedtime.

[opendoor]

Setting any air conditioner below normal room temperature (about 20-21º) generally isn't a great idea. When the room temperature is too cold, the refrigerant in the coil can't absorb the amount of heat it's supposed to, which drives the whole system's temperature downwards which can lead to problems (freezing of coils in more extreme circumstances) and reduce the lifespan.


It's the same reason you don't want to close a bunch of registers; if not enough air is passing over the cold coils, they don't absorb as much heat as they're designed to and it can lead to problems. ACs are generally designed to work best at room temperatures of 21º+.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

If I had one it would probably be set to 23-24. Shorts and t-shirt would be comfortable inside.

I set our furnace at 23 degrees in the winter, would probably do the same for AC

[Sliver]

For this extreme heat I've been setting the AC to 23 in the day just so it doesn't have to work so hard and then 21 once the sun sets.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15

If I had one it would probably be set to 23-24. Shorts and t-shirt would be comfortable inside.

When we were in Phoenix, this is what we would do. Set it to 74-75F, since we’re in shorts and t shirts all the time when it’s hot anyway. 20C or below would just be too cold.

[mrkajz44]

Ours is at 21.5 as that makes upstairs around 23-24 which is in the reasonable range for sleeping. I'd argue it's more about making things tolerable rather than really cranking it up.

[Jacks]

I have mine set to 24-25 and it's comfortable enough. After about 10-11pm I just turn it off and leave a couple upstairs windows open overnight. Anything below 21 seems extreme.

[Weitz]

21, which makes the bedroom about 22-23, which is barely livable IMO.

[Top Shelf]

Had a capacitor in our AC unit die over the weekend. Got back from camping and the house was sweltering.

Was able to get a tech out yesterday evening and he mentioned that all his calls over the weekend were for faulty capacitors.

My fan motor has power, but wasn't able to start itself. Had to use a thin stick to "kick start" the blades into moving, and then at least we had some cool air coming in until the tech was able to come out.

[Mull]

Originally Posted by Top Shelf

Had a capacitor in our AC unit die over the weekend. Got back from camping and the house was sweltering.

Was able to get a tech out yesterday evening and he mentioned that all his calls over the weekend were for faulty capacitors.

My fan motor has power, but wasn't able to start itself. Had to use a thin stick to "kick start" the blades into moving, and then at least we had some cool air coming in until the tech was able to come out.

Is there something I should be doing to avoid this issue (i.e. ensuring it gets a nighttime break), or just wear and tear that is bad luck?

Stupid question given many homes don't have AC, but if you're going out of town, and you have NEST to cool it down when you get home, would you just turn off your AC 100%?

We have some old big directly south facing windows that just heat up a room. I can imagine it being like a car in the hot sun. I guess I am not really risking damage to anything if no one is home however??? Fancy hardwood should be ok?

[Mull]

Saw this on Reddit, Enmax hit a new record!

https://www.enmax.com/generation-wir...-system-demand

Users also posted this interesting info:

http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market...DReportServlet

Was curious about the province as a whole. Pulling in 663 MW from outside the province. Solar's pumping. Wind is lacking as per every time I look. Didn't even know Dual Fuel was a thing they tracked.

I'm not sure if there will be much load difference between now and the peak as AC doesn't work harder when it's hotter, just longer. So right now most things are probably running.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

Do most houses in Lethbridge have AC? I would think it would be hotter and drier than Calgary during the summer

I would assume less than half the houses have AC here. I don't know a lot of people with AC at least. I bought this house with AC, first house I've ever lived in that has it. We usually use it sparingly. This week it runs a lot though. Our next door neighbours on one side have one and it runs from 6:00am until 11:00pm. I fee like they go overkill on their AC usage. The house on the other side doesn't have it, but they have 30 million trees planted on their yard and have great shade (but no view)

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

we're odd, perhaps.
18 is our usual go to point for a comfortable household temperature summer or winter.
although in winter we drop it to 16 at bedtime.

Yikes, that's nuts. I drop it to 18.5 when sleeping, and I still find that a bit too cold if I have to wake up in the middle of the night and get out of bed for something. I can't imagine 16 degrees in the middle of winter.

[Buff]

For the "what's your thermostat set to" question.

26 or 27 for AC. I wondered if the thermostat is off, but I matched temps with another thermometer and it's right. I set it to cool until 26 and it keeps the house comfortable. We don't need to feel chilled, just comfortable.

In winter we set the furnace to 21, maybe 22. Sometimes at 22 it feels very toasty warm.

My house is weird.

The entire office bulding is set to 22 year round. It is neither hot in summer nor cold in winter. Its always comfortable.

[chemgear]

Wow, 16 or 18 degrees seems super cold to me. What are the electrical bills like at those levels?

[The Yen Man]

For normal day, mine's basically set to AC turns on at 21.5 degrees, heat set to turn on at 19.5 degrees. The heat is set to year round, the AC gets turned on around May, and off by October.

For sleeping, I set it at 18.5 degrees for the winter, 21 degrees for the summer, with the wake up hour (6:30 to 7:30) set to 22 degrees as I like waking up to a warm house.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Mull

Is there something I should be doing to avoid this issue (i.e. ensuring it gets a nighttime break), or just wear and tear that is bad luck?

Stupid question given many homes don't have AC, but if you're going out of town, and you have NEST to cool it down when you get home, would you just turn off your AC 100%?

We have some old big directly south facing windows that just heat up a room. I can imagine it being like a car in the hot sun. I guess I am not really risking damage to anything if no one is home however??? Fancy hardwood should be ok?

There's best practices to reduce the risk of running into issues, but it's not always preferable. Things like yearly maintenance, tune up, aiming to decrease the temp only around 1-2C per hour (vs 5-10 degrees in an hour or something) and not going below 22C are best practices to generally maintain units for over 10 years, but not guaranteed to keep the unit from having issues.


When I had AC, with the Nest I had it on eco mode if away on vacation, it would kick in if indoor temps went over like 32-35C or something like that. 22C on the thermostat was not the same as 22C on the temperature sensor in my bedroom upstairs (temp differential was around 1-4C main floor to upstairs bed room and up to 6-8 degree difference for basement). Other things like humidity and sunlight also affect comfort beyond raw temperature.


For indoor heat damage, I think UV rays might be a bit more of concern for damage vs heat. If you have a south facing window, I'd think curtains/blinds that filter/block light are more likely to protect the hardwood vs making sure the temps don't go over 32-35C indoors.
For instance, I believe an oil based varnish on hardwood floors will yellow quicker if exposed to the sun. A water based varnish/laminate/engineered wood might be more resistant to UV rays though. Furniture and fabrics don't do great in UV light and the heat combinations and may fade faster.

[burn_this_city]

22.5 year round, on days like today I set the downstairs AC unit a half degree lower so the upstairs unit doesn't take the entire workload.

[vtec260]

24C during this heatwave. Kicks in at 8am and shuts down at midnight. We have lots of windows on second floor and 24C is plenty cool for our needs.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I've never been more glad that I have a mini split. 38.6º outside and 22º inside, and it uses surprisingly little electricity. Yesterday was a similar temperature and it was about $1.50 in electricity to keep it at 22-23º all day and night in a 2000 sq ft house.

I wish it wasn't so damn expensive to retrofit mini splits. If we had a mini split for each bedroom that's all we'd need. And they can actually be left off and just turn them on to blow on you at bedtime and use a fraction of the energy used by whole house AC.