What temperature control are you using in your own home when it’s hottest?
0 voters
Right now (May the 21st) What temperature control are you using
I’m trying to budget and just using a fan on the lowest setting for as long as possible.
For me, I want to be comfortable…why suffer? I’m usually at work during the heat of the day, so for now I have my floor fan running when I’m home. However, when I go to bed I turn my a/c on a one-hour timer. As the weather gets hotter, I’ll also turn it on when I take my early morning pee and go back to bed.
My apartment is only 11 ping, so it doesn’t take much a/c to cool it down.
That’s pretty much what we used to do. Our new place doesn’t have aircon, and I have a feeling it’s going to get uncomfortable in August.
For both of us, 23-25’C is just right, so we had this massive 8kW aircon unit (which the S.O. insisted on 
) twiddling its thumbs to achieve a modest ~5’C temperature drop in the middle of summer. We barely even noticed the extra electricity cost, even if we left it on all night. In the office, A good fan, in conjunction with, um, fewer clothes, works just fine (I have my own office, if you’re picturing uncomfortable coworkers).
Air conditioning… it’s the ONLY effective way to keep cool in this kind of humidity. Everything not growing mushrooms is a big bonus too. If it were dry and hot then a fan with an air mister would work great but in this kind of humidity it would only make things worse. By the way most locals consider air conditioning to be a luxury (not a necessity) so there are way too many public places without AC (or with inadequate AC, which is actually worse!). If I enter a restaurant and the AC isn’t turned on, or missing, I take my business elsewhere.
Yes the electricity is more expensive but it’s maybe 1000nt more than if you didn’t use AC (your rate will almost double regardless whether or not you used AC because the rate increases in the summer anyways). If your house didn’t come with AC, then sucks to be you that you didn’t consider this when renting it, however if you rented it dirt cheap (for the area), install them pronto! If you can install a window unit then you can usually find a used one for around 5000, but you should probably make sure the AC shop knows what they are doing because sometimes they break for no reason. Otherwise you will have to install a split unit, which is better however installation cost alone is around 3000 or more!
i just use the AC and don’t concern myself with the extraordinary cost of running it. My base electrical usage costs 1000-1200NT (every 2 months) during the winter. My peak bill last summer was 2700NT. The increase is something like 25NT/day. I’m not sweating my balls off for 25NT/day. I didn’t have AC until July one year and I nearly lost my mind due to the constant heat.
apt details - maybe a 10 ping living room with connected kitchen and then a small bedroom at night. I set it at 26 or 27C which is cool for me but the heat doesn’t bother me as much as others. I work from 2-9 during the week so that helps with the hottest part of the day.
[quote=“bonzifan”]Right now (May the 21st) What temperature control are you using
I’m trying to budget and just using a fan on the lowest setting for as long as possible.[/quote]
Spoil yourself. Turn the setting to 2.
You cannot be that desperate to save the 2 NT a month. I seriously doubt a faster fan speed will make any noticeable difference to your bill.
I have two Hitachi Inverter ACs installed in my 10 ping living room and 5 ping bedroom. During weekdays I use the AC from 18~3 am and leave them on all day during weekends. My bills for July Aug 2012 was 1800, break down to 30 NT a day. Hell of a lot cheaper than those USD 160 monthly bills I used to get from Florida Power.
Almost identical setup here (at least until we moved), although I try to save energy on principle. I think our bills increased by a couple hundred NT$ in the summer - I suppose $10NT/day (2.5kWh). At a 24’C setting, our aircon unit was barely even breaking a sweat.
I agree with the posters above: all things considered, aircon (if you have it) is the best way. Remember a modern aircon pumps about 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity you put in; looked at that way, a fan is pretty inefficient, especially in humid weather.
Whatever you do, DO NOT buy that swamp cooler wannabes that you have to put water/ice in them to work. In teh name of all mercy! Taiwan is humid enough.
Remember the AC has a dehumidifier function. Use it well. And make sure that the water is ejected somehwere else but not on your neighbors’ -supposedly, you can get fined for that.
Also make sure you size the AC properly for the environment/room it’s in. It makes no sense to run a 3 ton AC in a 6 ping room. It’s going to either feel like Antarctica or a tropical jungle, and your bill is going to be very high because you’ll have to set the AC to 16 degrees before it feels comfortable.
In general it’s better to slightly undersize the AC than to grossly oversize them, unless you got 20 people in the room all the time.
[quote=“bigduke6”][quote=“bonzifan”]Right now (May the 21st) What temperature control are you using
I’m trying to budget and just using a fan on the lowest setting for as long as possible.[/quote]
Spoil yourself. Turn the setting to 2.
You cannot be that desperate to save the 2 NT a month. I seriously doubt a faster fan speed will make any noticeable difference to your bill.[/quote]
Haha, for some reason this made me laugh.
Yeah, maybe it’s more that I’m perfectly comfortable with just the fan going. I do… occasionally spoil muself and turn it up to 2 
I have not used an a/c in 5 years, which was when I moved out of the city to a plateau close to the foothills, with plenty of greenery to cool things down.
So basic floor fans are what we use, and lots of open windows to catch the breeze.