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Tips For Saving Energy And Money On Cooling This Summer.
azsustainably.com — Where I live in Arizona it ’s already getting hot with triple digit weather coming at us next week. Air conditioning (A/C) is pretty much a necessity in the desert and power bills of $200 to even $400 are all too common. What can we do to keep our houses cooler and use less of the A/C so that we can save energy and money?
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- yellowcakewalk, on 05/15/2008, -4/+8Don't use air conditioning at all. I've done fine without it for years, and without television for a lifetime, without a car for nearly a decade. No, I don't live in rural Montana, I'm inside the beltway. You just don't need that *****. Get a fan instead.
- BottledSunshine, on 05/15/2008, -0/+9Just when I think you can’t get any dumber you go and prove me wrong. Have you ever spent any time around Phoenix, Gila Bend or Tucson? It gets up to and over 115 degrees during the day there, sometimes so hot, you have to wear gloves to keep from burning your hands when you touch an airplane. It’s also arid, so all a fan does is push around scorching hot air.
- verevi, on 05/15/2008, -3/+1Maybe that's because those places were not meant to be inhabited?
- yellowcakewalk, on 05/15/2008, -5/+2Ah, dry heat. You guys have it easy.
- BottledSunshine, on 05/15/2008, -0/+4I now live about 20 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico in SE Texas. The temperature here in the summer is around 93 degrees with high humidity levels. The only time I use my air conditioner is on extremely hot nights, to cool my bedroom down before I go to sleep. In a humid environment, fans will cool you off, unlike in a hot and arid environment. Swamp coolers are effective in arid environments because they inject humidity into the breeze they produce.
- sungoddess808, on 05/15/2008, -0/+4A fan doesn't always work when the temperatures drop down to 103 degrees at 0200 hours. It is not always dry heat as some people think. If that was the case, a swamp cooler could be used.
- BottledSunshine, on 05/15/2008, -0/+2True, but I was trying to keep it simple by mainly discussing the daylight hours with yellow. Anything approaching complex thought makes his head hurt.
- BottledSunshine, on 05/15/2008, -0/+9Just when I think you can’t get any dumber you go and prove me wrong. Have you ever spent any time around Phoenix, Gila Bend or Tucson? It gets up to and over 115 degrees during the day there, sometimes so hot, you have to wear gloves to keep from burning your hands when you touch an airplane. It’s also arid, so all a fan does is push around scorching hot air.
- maddvibe, on 05/15/2008, -0/+7We try not to use A/C too much, but when it is 110 and above out and doesn't drop below the 90's at night it gets quite uncomfortable inside. We employ as much passive cooling techniques as we can. Would love to have solar panels.
- nickmo, on 05/15/2008, -0/+5I live in southern California, and there are only ever a dozen or so days out of the year that I wish I had A/C, but man, on those days I would pay $1000 for an in window unit. Something about having experienced A/C regularly as a child makes it extra hard to do with out as an adult.
- upick, on 05/15/2008, -0/+4my tip... spend $5 on a bus / train ticket to your favorite shopping mall and spend the whole day there!
My Free air con tip - louiebaur, on 05/15/2008, -0/+3I have to use the ac a little even in Long Beach just to cool the house down for 5 minutes there is something about having ac blowing on my I am happy to pay for
- starfocus03, on 05/15/2008, -0/+5Taking these steps can make a big difference. Great resource!
- bincoder, on 05/15/2008, -0/+3I live in arizona too and simply turning off the ac and doing without is not an option. My 30 year old one blew up last summer and it took a week to get a new one. It was regularly 112-114 degrees each day and humid from monsoon season. Had to keep putting blue ice into the aquariams to keep the fish alive and stay elsewhere where there was ac. Most of the canned foods in the cupboards went bad, corroding on the inside of the can (soups, fruit cocktail, sweets, canned milk). The least that happened was the food was inedible, several cans exploded. Even dry foods like mac and cheese turned color and spoiled. A freezer in a back room overheated and was unable to keep the steaks, etc. totally frozen until I got a small window ac to cool that one room. I could run my pc for maybe 15 minutes then had to power down as it was getting really hot on the cpu. Finally got the new ac, and that caused the electric bill to be half of what it used to be and for more cooling. The biggest way to save on ac is to have a modern unit. Its surprising how many of the ancient ones are still in service.
- maddvibe, on 05/15/2008, -0/+1I live in Arizona also and have had canned food explode on me. I think I left it in the garage for a couple days in a 100+ weather and then put it away in the pantry. Sometime after that it exploded and made a huge mess. I didn't think the heat would affect it like that. :o
- paperfrog, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1I'm using window units, so I don't have to cool rooms which are not in use or have sufficient ventilation. Like bincoder, I live in a warm (in my case, nearly tropical) climate, and my computers would become very unhappy without a/c.
- redcolumbine, on 05/16/2008, -0/+1Keep a spray bottle of isopropyl alcohol in a handy place in every room where you work - Squirt your tummy or the back of your neck now and then. Ahhhhh! (Great for cleaning the stove hood or random spills, too.)
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