Ok...summer will be here in no time at all, and then
we'll all be complaining about how we can't wait till
wintertime again..

anywho......

I live on a second floor apartment, which has a 62"x48"
living room window facing south. All the other windows
(bedrooms & kitchen) are facing north and are quite a 
bit smaller.
 
I have 2 wall unit air conditioners both the same size,
one for the master bedroom (facing north) and the other
for the living room (facing south).


now from a ecological energy saving perspective:

I think this summer I will only run the master bedroom
air conditioner and us a fan to recirculate the cool air
through the rest of the apartment (750 sq ft). Is this a
good idea, and more importantly would it make much of a
difference on my electric bill?


I put up clear sheets of plastic (4 mil) on all my windows
to keep the cold air out for the winter. All the windows
are double pane glass....so one part of me says by keeping
the plastic sheeting up..it will add an extra layer of 
insulation and keep the apartment cooler, while the other
half thinks that this will make the apartment more hotter
like a green house.. so should I leave it up or take it 
down??


I've heard it's a myth that keeping you AC running on a 
thermostat is better than just turning it on when you get
home after work. Then I started thinking, the air should
cool off pretty quickly, but the furniture and objects in
the apartment will still be giving off heat. Last year,
when i'd get home, by 5pm when the outdoor temp was still
around 85 F, but the indoors temp was hotter sometimes by
10-15 F degrees. So if you start the AC in the morning,
when it's cool, i'm thinking it will use up the same amount
of electricity but at least be cool when I get home. Am I
missing something here???


wow, I wrote alot of stuff....

103 responses total.

you lost me at 62"x48" living room.

You know, about the air con, it probably matters how new and energy-
efficient the unit is.  I person can't stand too much air 
conditioning.  I tend to tolerate it since I and my roommate both have 
pets, and I will use it if I'm horribly sick in the summer, which 
thankfully happens rarely.

I am almost positive I am going to buy a room a/c unit this summer 
although I am not sure where the best place to put it is. /sigh. I dont 
think I will leave it on all day because I just dont buy that it is 
cheaper to do that. 

During the night, my house almost always cools off very nicely. If the 
outside temp is in the 70's during the night, everything is hunky dory. 
Even on the hottest days, the temp usually gets into the 70's at night. 
In the morning, I close all the windows and close the blinds. Even on 
days when the outside temp gets into the 90's, the house stays pretty 
cool. I have ceiling fans in 3 of the 4 downstairs rooms and that 
helps. It doesnt get hot inside until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I get 
home around 6p which is when the house is at its hottest. I figure that 
if I get a/c, I will ask my roommate to turn it on around 2 or 3 on the 
lowest setting and that should keep the house cool enough for the dogs. 
Anyhow, as soon as it gets dark and cools off, fans are enough to cool 
the house. I wish they sold solar powered a/c units since the times I 
want to run it are the times when it is really sunny. 

The greater the temperature difference, the more heat will flow.  If you
want to minimze the amount of heat removed from your apartment, you'll
want to let it heat up during the day, and only cool it at night.
Whether this will actually be more efficient depends on your A/C and
human factors.  If your bedroom A/C is much less efficient, & you feel
hot so you turn the A/C up higher, then you might not gain as much or
might even lose compared to having the A/C on all the time or using the
living room unit as well.  So far as the plastic goes, if you're doing
for maximal energy efficiency, you'll want to put opaque white blinds on
the outsides of your windows.  White, so that it will reflect sunlight,
opaque, so none goes through the glass.

What you want to do is:

1.)     Keep as much heat out of your apartment as you can.
2.)     Get rid of excess heat as cheaply as you can.

The window plastic is half and half.  If you have the A/C on
it helps you by keeping heat out, but if the A/C is off it
hurts you as soon as the apartment temperature rises over
ambient.  How it works on average depends on whether you're
going to leave the A/C on all day or not.

So far as the rest is concerned, I'd try to shade or tint the
south-facing windows to keep radiant heat out.  You can probably
keep the apartment much closer to outside temperatures by leaving
the windows open during the day; this will really cut down the
greenhouse effect, and open windows cost nothing.  (This may not
work if you are dealing with a lot of humidity, so use judgement.)

Unless you use the bedroom quite a bit in the evening before
bed, I'd use the living room unit for comfort until around
bedtime, then turn it off and use the bedroom unit.  You might
want to pre-cool the bedroom for an hour or so, for comfort.
Cooling space you aren't using, or putting most of the cooling
where you aren't using it, isn't the most efficient.  On the
other hand, if you use the bedroom as a retreat you might want
to leave its A/C on all day with the door closed, and leave
windows open elsewhere; this cools the minimum space and will
probably have the least cost.

Plant deciduous trees on the south side.  Shade in summer, no shade in winter.

I believe that air conditioning is direct evidence of the existence of (a)
God.

Easy, aren't you, ric?

If that were true, the god would have found a way around the 2nd law. But
it couldn't. Pretty incompetent idea of a god. 

Well, definitely, as soon as the temperature inside the apartment gets
warmer than outside, it's a net win to open the window, especially if
you're not there.

Unless your primary goal is keeping the humidity down, in which case opening
a window is always a loss.

#9> Maybe God's goal was to see how clever his creations could be, by given
them obstacles to overcome? >=}

Just playing with us, huh?

"God does not play dice with the Universe." -- Albert Einstein.
 
Translation: God just doesn't give a craps.

        I thought the translation of that was "the universe really is pretty
much the way we look at it and there is no wave/particle duality".  But hey,
maybe that's just me.

Leave it to John to ruin a good pun.

...and if there's a pun to be made on "wave/particle duality," I sure haven't
found it.

I had a gen-next friend who shared a phoneline with several neighbors. They
had a bunch of their friends over, one time, doing X and listening to trance.
I tried to phone them up, but I got one of the neighbors instead. That's when
I discovered the lack of a rave/party call duality.
 
Ok, it's not great, but what do you expect from the material you gave me?

        I didn't GET the pun, that's my problem. ;)

        I liked the rave/party call duality pun though.

In the summer take the plastic off two windows at opposite ends of the
apartment so that in the evening when it becomes cooler out than in you can
stick a large window fan in one of them and blow the hot air out.  Outside
air will come in the other one. You would probably want the fan in the LR
(south) window.  Put a cheap white windowshade on the south windows if the
sun comes in during the day in summer (sometimes there is an overhang to block
the sun).  Pull it down in the morning.  The plastic on the other windows will
keep heat out as well as in.  In the morning when it gets hotter out than in
turn off the fan and close the two windows and pull down the shades.  Try to
do most of your cooking when it is cooler out than in (late evening make lots
of food for the next day to heat up in the microwave oven).  If you have a
balcony you can run an electric cord out and cook on a hotplate.  I have not
needed airconditioning in my uninsulated apartment which is mostly S and W
windows.  Also take your showers at times when the windows are open to keep
the heat and humidity from the hot water from staying inside.

You can set the fan to run on a timer if you know that you will be sleeping
past the time when it gets hot out, for instance set it to stop blowing at
6 or 7 am.

We don't have any South windows.  Then again, we don't live in a house 
either.

Re #14:  No, He plays roulette.  That's why particles have spin.

It is possible that eprom has not thought of two very cheap ways of staying
cool in the summer.   After removing the box fan from the window in the
morning, when it starts getting hot (around 80) turn the fan on low and point
it at the occupant.  Remove clothing.  We know two older couples who keep
their air conditioning on all the time to the point where I bring long pants
and  a sweater if we visit, because they are used to dressing the same way
all year long - long pants, socks, undershirt, warm shirt.
With the shade pulled down you do not need to wear clothing except on that
part of you which contacts the chair.

If you have a lot of west wall, the place will feel hotter even if the air
temperature does not seem high, because the wall will absorb heat from
afternoon sun and radiate it inwards (unless of course it is insulated, in
which case you should not need any air conditioning if you open up at night).
I have a large fireplace/chimney on the west wall of the living room, which
makes the room unusuable after about 3 pm in the summer.  Feels like sitting
next to an in-use oven.

I had air conditioning for the first time last summer, and I really 
appreciated it.  I slept a lot better, for one thing.  When it's 95 and 
humid I have trouble sleeping, no matter how little I'm wearing.

A nice, simple, if inelegant way to sleep better in hot and humid 
conditions without A/C is to sprinkle the bed with talc before you get 
in.  It is surprisingly effective.

Sounds messy. Do you do this?

Yes.  That's how I know how surprising it is that it works.  It's only messy
if you use way too much talc.

I have never known it to be 95 at night, or over about 80 in the late evening.
If you put a fan in a window in another room (open) and also open a bedroom
window and blow the air out, outside air will come into the bedroom which is
cooler than what is probably inside the bedroom, and it will also be moving,
which makes it feel cooler (the air heated by your body is blown away).

It's only partly the sticky feeling that bothers me; there's also the 
fact that when it's really humid I always feel like breathing is a 
major effort.

For reasons difficult to make sound sensible, I spent two summers in 
Texas without any A/C in my apartment.  Summer in that part of Texas 
means three months of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 90 percent humidity.  
Nights only marginally cooler.  I don't know what the indoor 
temparature was.  Higher.

I used keesan's method - wear nothing; keep a fan pointed at you.  
Anywhere I went in my house, I carried my fan with me.  We developed a 
deep and meaningful relationship, my fan and I.  Perfectly comfortable, 
though it works best if you don't entertain too much.  If you do 
entertain a lot, I guess you need more fans and remarkably tolerant 
friends.

As a third shifter, I get to nap in bedroom facing west.  I get the full heat
and sun.  I use keesan's method also. A fan is quite energy efficient.

This response has been erased.

It has irked me for some time that we spend a fair amount of effort
getting rid of snow in the winter, and then suffer with heat in the
summer.  It would be so... *trivial* to just shove that snow into an
insulated pit in the ground in the winter, and melt it in the summer
for cooling.  I know it's been done before, yet almost nobody seems
to be doing it.  WTF is wrong with people in this country?!

Many years ago I "invented" the idea to connect winter in the Northern
Hemisphere with summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vica versa,
as a source of almost unlimited power. Although there are some technical
difficulties, it still should have generated more enthusiasm than
occurred. 

a twist on geothermal energy, eh?

Russ, we just found our post-hole digger which you are welcome to dig your
pit with.  It might be simpler just to run piping down into a deep well and
use the ground-temperature water to cool with.

I think the costs of moving and storing the snow would not make up for 
the energy savings. It may in the future, but not at this point.

People used to cut up blocks of ice and store them under a lot of sawdust over
the summer, to cool food with.

I don't know.  When you get blizzards in metropolitan areas, you start 
running out of places to pile up the snow, so they get some loaders and 
start piling the snow into dump trucks to haul away.  Once you get to 
that point, you've done half the job.  Just dump it in Russ's pit.

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