re: Alabama Power tells the 76° AC environmentalists to hold their really hot beer

quote:

---

Not totally. It’s a case by case thing. Only 80 degrees is a bit of a stretch. But there are definitely some days in summer where my house is 74-75 and it is not budging. That poor bastard can run all day. Doesn’t matter.

That’s with our old Trane we got with the house and now with our new unit.

---

Something's wrong. You should be getting very nearly 20 degree delta T from your air intake to you air vents. Have you checked your ducting for leaks? Is the house really poorly insulated and/or has a lot of west/south facing glass?

bullshite. My house has no problem holding the thermostat at 72 even in the worst of the heat all last summer without struggling. Unit actually shuts off for a while because it gets at or below what the thermostat was set to.

And I know my AC thermostat is accurate because I can turn on a digital meat thermometer and before I stick it in the meat, it shows the same temp as I have the thermostat set at.

He's partially correct but he should know better.

It's true that AC's are designed to lower the air temp by 20 degrees and that number might be even higher now with the new freon formulations (edit) and larger coils.

Also, it depends on how well your house is insulated and if the units are sized correctly.

If your indoor temp started at 100 and the AC lowered it to 80, the next pass would lower the room air to 60, to 40, to 20, etc. That's how you can keep your indoor temp at 72 on a 100 degree day and how data centers maintain ~65 degrees. Of course you will use more electricity to get to lower temps.

My new upstairs unit air is so cold, the moisture in the air condenses on the two registers closest to the unit. The old inefficient undersized builder grade units struggled to keep the house at 77 on the hottest days.

quote:

---

Call me trashy all you want but that’s exactly what we have. One in the den, one for the kitchen and living room, and one for each 3 bedrooms. I promise you if those air conditioners in the bedrooms are going it’s well below 20 degrees than the outside temperature.

---

If my HOA would allow it I’d totally have window units for my bedroom. Something about the air those things put out just hits right.

if your AC runs for 1 hour non stop, it probably isn't getting your home any colder

quote:

---

NEvermind the fact your refrigerator and freezer somehow pull off this feat, this defying physics miracle, on a daily basis, and has been for nearly a hundred years.

---

That is a horrible way to make your point. The average refrigerator has about 30 BTUs of cooling capacity per cubic foot, and is very well insulated and sealed. Compare that to a 1500ftsq house with 8-foot ceilings (12k cuft) and the equivalent cooling capacity would be 30 tons seven to ten times the normal amount for that size of home.

This ain’t 2002.

quote:

---

Nobody is cooling their inside air by more than 20 degrees

---

In a bedroom with a 10 year old window unit blasting on high and the door shut its without a doubt more than a 20 degrees difference compared to the outside temperature. That’s a fact.

I had it 68 in the house yesterday, it was 97 outside.

With no ceiling insulation during construction it held 70 degrees for a full month