air conditioners

[bratling.livejournal.com]

if you're thinking about buying an in-window air conditioner this year, this may be a good time to do it. i was at the Somerville Home Despot (sic) this morning, and they had Maytag 6000 BTU air conditioners with remote control for $120. no kidding.

i didn't check the energy efficiency rating, and at that price i expect it's not high, but at that price, it'll take a few years before the electric bill exceeds your savings. a couple weeks ago i saw 6000 BTU air conditioners at Economy Hardware in Central Square for $200.

after the summer five or six years ago when i gladly paid $350 for a 5000 BTU air conditioner -- the last one sears had in stock -- seeing $120 just makes my jaw drop. :-)

if you are getting an AC, i suggest getting one with a real thermostat, rather than "hi-med-low" settings. last year i replaced my old one with a Kenmore with an electronic thermostat. being able to set it to (say) 75 degrees and forget it is great -- it doesn't run all the time, thus using less energy. ones with timers to turn them off (for going to sleep) are nice, too.

anyway. saw the $120 unit and now i'm babbling ... :-)

Comments

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

how much energy DOES an AC unit use? this is the first year I have one... not sure about its efficiency, but it is a med-sized unit for one room. Is my electric bill going to go up by $10/month? $20? more?

[bratling.livejournal.com]

hmmm. you know, it's been long enough since i started using an AC that i'm not sure what it was before. comparing April vs July electric bills isn't directly useful, since rates go up in the summer. our apartment, which has one AC going pretty much 24/7 (my housemates -- she has a south-facing bay window and that room gets *hot*), and the other going evenings (mine), has summer electric bills around $60 or so. fwiw.

the rational way to solve this is: find out how many watts your AC uses (probably in the manual or on the package, as the max rating). then multiple that by hours of operation per month, then divide by 1000, and you have kilowatt-hours. check your electric bill for your rate per KW/h, and multiply. that's your cost of operation.

one feature i like about mine -- there's a "sleep" mode. every 30 minutes (i think) it increases the temperature setting by one degree. your body temperature drops as you sleep, so it makes sense -- and again, saves some energy. combine this with a timer to turn it off, and you can be cool when you go to sleep, yet not be frozen by morning.