LIR: the specifics of that A/C myth may have been busted but as mara's link says, the longer you don't cool the place, the more you'll save
Posted by
zork
Jun 11 '12, 12:40
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So did you save energy?
Yes, for whatever the amount of time you were able to leave the house at 80 F instead of 75 F there was a 20% reduction of energy (assuming the 100 F day). The longer you can leave it at 80 F the more total energy you�ll save.
But what about the energy it took to cool the house back down from 80 F to 75 F, didn�t that erase the energy savings? No, that energy was a fraction of what it would have taken to keep the house at 75 F while no one was home.
One thing you do need to take into account is the time it takes the air conditioning system to recover back down to 75 F. There are a lot of variables that go into this, but typically it will take from 30 minutes to an hour. This is why you need a programmable thermostat so this can all be done automatically before you come home.
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