I have a couple of questions about how to make the best and most efficient use of air conditioners without racking up a massive power bill.
Does turning on an air conditioner and letting it run for say half an hour, then leaving it off for a few hours before turning it on again use more power than leaving it running for an extended period? I know some electric devices use more power in the turning on and off phase than they do when left running - does an air conditioner fall into this category?
Since air conditioners have a temperature regulator - if I was to say leave one running at like 26 degrees continuously, would it turn off when it reached 26 degrees then turn on again later when needed - i.e. is it set to maximize power efficiency on its own, or would I still rack up a high power bill this way?
Any tips you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Depends on whether it is an inverter-based model (bian ping) which uses a DC inverter to provide different frequencies for the compressor to run at, as compared to the traditional ones (ding ping) which run at two speeds derived from the mains frequency (full speed and half speed), or off.
If you buy an inverter model a/c they are very efficient and use very little juice. They are of course very expensive, but the older style a/cs are being phased out anyway. For example the Hitachi unit in my bedroom is only rated at 800W maximum. The old one ran at 1500W. They produce roughly the same effect, but the new Hitachi inverter one uses half the electricity. Quite amazing. It was nearly NT$30k though which NT$12k more than a non-inverter one I bought recently rated at the same number of BTUs.
Big a/c units use an awful lot of juice to start up, and the worst thing you can have is the unit cycling on and off. The comfort effect works best when the a/c can run for quite a long time and reduce the humidity in the room, which is why buying one that is too big is often a mistake. You will just end up with freezing-boiling-freezing and the humidity won’t drop very much.
If your a/c units are quite small though, such that they need to run at over 80% of the time to produce a comfortable environment you might as well go for the traditional cheaper non-inverter ones as the savings will not be as great. But of course with the smallest units you may not have sufficient air flow to cool the whole room.
If your main concern is electricity consumption I’d go for inverter units, especially if 26 degrees is where you want to be as they have a finer degree of control at the margin between compressor on and compressor off. A traditional one is likely to be pumping out air at 12 degrees C below ambient (inside air) which may cool the room too quickly and lead to cycling on and off. A DC inverter one can spin the compressor down to a low speed before going completely off.
Using a fan together with an inverter a/c unit is probably the cheapest way to go in terms of electricity consumption.
How hot does it get up there? Hot enough to warrant an AC? I always found the mountains to be blissfully cool, at least comparatively speaking.[/quote]
How hot does it get up there? Hot enough to warrant an AC? I always found the mountains to be blissfully cool, at least comparatively speaking.[/quote]
Lord Lucan, thank you for your insight. Here is my situation:
I have an office room (around 27 pings) that has a central A/C unit. The A/C is outside the building and runs via tubing to the ceiling of the room. There are a couple of vents in the front and back of the room. The remote just points to a sensor light that is just mounted on the ceiling. At the moment, we turn it on for a couple of hours in the morning, then turn it off for a few hours until the room heats up again to warrant turning it back on in the afternoon and so on.
My apartment has separate, traditional A/C units in each unit (they look fairly new). The living room gets very hot, so I’d obviously love to have the A/C going on whenever I’m there but I’m concerned I’ll end up with a massive electricity bill. So again my solution was to leave it running for a bit, then turn it off myself for a few hours until it gets hot enough to warrant turning it back on again.
So I assume you’re saying in both cases, it’s better to leave it running for the full duration I’m there, rather than turn it on/off manually myself? I’ve only had to manage this situation in the past month now that it’s gotten really hot here, so I don’t know what my bill for both places will look like this month. Would it help if I looked up the model numbers of the A/C units and checked online to see what system of A/C it was to determine the best way to use it, or would it be the same for all models?
Where do you live? And how about humidity levels and winter temperatures? This sounds like the kind of place someone born north of the arctic circle would like to live.
Where do you live? And how about humidity levels and winter temperatures? This sounds like the kind of place someone born north of the arctic circle would like to live.[/quote]
I live in the Alishan mountain range. Winter temperatures in a cold winter get below 0. Humidity? Yes get some at time but rarely high enough to bother you. It’s usually not too humid up here.
I grew up in Canberra and the coldest recorded when I was there was -10C and max around 42C
But for June 2010
Temperature
[color=#0000FF]Canberra recorded an average maximum temperature of 13.0 °C in June[/color], which is 0.8 °C warmer than the historical average. The warmest day was 16.1 °C on the 2nd of the month, with the coolest maximum being 7.7 °C on the 9th. The warmest day recorded in the ACT was at Tuggeranong on the 4th, where they reached 16.8 °C.
Overnight temperatures in Canberra were a little cooler than usual with the average minimum temperature being 0.6 °C (historical average, 1.0 °C). The coldest night recorded at Canberra was -5.0 °C on the 28th. There were 13 days which dropped below freezing, which is equal to the historical average. There were two cold snaps during the month, with 6 consecutive nights dropping below zero between the 11th and the 16th, and another 4 consecutive nights between the 27th and the 30th. These cold conditions were associated with dominant high pressure systems over the area, which brought clear skies and light winds. The coolest June temperatures recorded within the ACT were -7.0 °C at Mt Ginini on the 30th, followed by -6.8 °C at Tuggeranong on the 29th.
Where do you live? And how about humidity levels and winter temperatures? This sounds like the kind of place someone born north of the arctic circle would like to live.[/quote]
I was born closer to the Equator and I wanna live up there in Alishan at 20 degrees.
I got to ask how you managed to end up there. And what kind of jobs that you could get there? I know quite a few people who’d like to escape the concrete jungle, but none of them has been able to figure how they’d make a living in a place as remote as alishan. Even Yilan seems challenging, workwise.
I got to ask how you managed to end up there. And what kind of jobs that you could get there? I know quite a few people who’d like to escape the concrete jungle, but none of them has been able to figure how they’d make a living in a place as remote as alishan. Even Yilan seems challenging, workwise.[/quote]
I’ve been living in Alishan nearly 10 years. Followed my wife up here as she didnt like living in the cities either.
I have a business with an office in Taipei but I dont have to be there all the time so I spend time between Taipei and Alishan.
Does anyone know how much the air temp varies with height of a building? I live on the second floor and I pretty much can’t stop running my AC. I have a decent tolerance to heat but if there is no AC then I’m sweating day or night. But I was up in a 15th floor apt at 6pm the other day (south and east facing) and it was relatively comfortable with only fans running and windows open. Is there that much of a difference between ground level temp? Have other people noticed this also?
[quote=“Abacus”]Unrelated to the OP but loosely on topic. Maybe…
Does anyone know how much the air temp varies with height of a building? I live on the second floor and I pretty much can’t stop running my AC. I have a decent tolerance to heat but if there is no AC then I’m sweating day or night. But I was up in a 15th floor apt at 6pm the other day (south and east facing) and it was relatively comfortable with only fans running and windows open. Is there that much of a difference between ground level temp? Have other people noticed this also?[/quote]
I do notice it’s easier to get a draft through my apartment on the 11th floor than in the earlier place I lived on the 3rd floor. And I can manage to get the indoor temperature to stay around 2 degrees celsius lower than the outdoor temperature with just the help of draft and some fans. I don’t mind around 27 degrees indoors, so the aircon is saved for days above 30.
When it hits 30 I close up the place completely. Rooms that I expect to use in the daytime are kept cool by aircon, but I shut the door on rooms that I rarely use, minimizing the space the aircon is cooling down. And I got some extra thick curtains with reflective surface that takes away 95% of the sunlight. They cost me a bit more than normal curtains, but it was a good investment. (The only problem is waking up in the morning as the daylight doesn’t really come through).
At night I open every window I got to let in the cool and fresh night air, but prepare myself for an early wake up as the heat starts to roll in at around 5AM.
In Europe air conditioning aren’t needed… it doesn’t get that hot. Consequently most people there do not have them and the few days that does get hot (like recently) will suck.
