I have a 1 yr old through the wall unit, around 18000 btu with a 220v plug.
I have two questions about the energy saver feature:
1) Does the energy saver mode make a measurable difference in energy use? Mine goes on and off in what I think is short cycles, I assume because the room temp increases rapidly. I keep the temp set at around 74 deg. The room stays comfortable enough.
2) Is all of that turning on and off bad for the unit? Should I just keep it on regular mode running all the time, instead? I know that the cooling part cycles on and off to keep the temp constant so I assume the energy saver feature just controls the fan?
TIA.
Sue(tm) Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!
Not sure what the desiners meant by energy saver mode in your unit. Any description in the User Manual? Or is it in Chinese?
Don't see how short cycles save energy, it the thermostat (inside) setting is the same. Is the speed any different? Did you measure the room temp. If it's the same in both settings, can't see where the savings come from.
Depending how often it cycles. Starting a motor does increase the temp temporarily, but it stabilizes in a minute or so. If the cycles are several minutes, there should be no prob. Again assuming the design eng KNEW what he was doing. Slower fan speed will save a bit of energy, but very little.
Check the temp and cycle time. See how much running time you get in an hour in both modes. If the same, you're not saving much. Again all that should be in User Manual, if the unit is made by a good company.
At least on my (smaller) Kenmore window unit, the energy saver mode means the fan only runs when the compressor is running. This means the whole thing turns off each time the compressor cycle is done, so maybe it sounds like it is taking shorter cycles. I would think the compressor would use a vast majority of the energy, and that running the fan between cycles might make a small difference. I usually use the energy saver mode on the AC, but keep the ceiling fan on low to circulate air - I prefer this combination to the regular mode AC. Good luck, Andy
Energy Saver Switch A sought-after feature of GE Room Air Conditioners is the Energy Saver Switch. With the switch in the "normal" position, the fan runs continuously and provides more uniform temperature in the room. In the "save" position, the fan turns off and on with the air conditioner's compressor to help reduce power consumption and operating cost.
They seem to make a big deal of it (as per excerpt above) but apparently it doesn't change the behavior of the compressor.
After reading the responses, I assume that it doesn't make such a big difference.
Thanks. Sue(tm) Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!
Turn the temp up a few degrees or turn off a light or two will save much more...
It takes about 2 Watts of power to cool the room for every Watt of heat....so running a 60 Watt bulb costs you 180 Watts, 60 for the bulb and 120 to get rid of the heat..
Once the room is at a stable temp, it can make quite a difference. At work I switch it ot energy save node at night, and find that it results in a few degrees higher real temp. It is great for when youare not there, it saves power[since if the room is not hot, the ac is off] but keeps the palce decent for when you return. Say you were leaving for 2 days, turn the a/c to paoer saver and leave at 80 degrees, that way the room will be dehumidified and reasonable for when you come back, but if it isn't really hot out it won't run at all.
Thanks- I didn't know that. It's a good perspective.
In that regard I'm doing OK. In addition to turning off the light bulbs (in the daytime, anyway) I use compact fluorescent bulbs and I pull the shades on the sunny side of the house.
I put the AC on 74 because it is a multiroom unit and it's not located well. Plus, when I'm moving around working, the humidity gets to me. But when I'm just sitting in the living room I adjust the temperature higher and turn on the box fan.
Last fall I went through hell putting insulation in the crawl space/attic. I think it's paying off though; upstairs doesn't seem to get as hot and the second floor ceiling hasn't yet gotten hotter than
83F according to my surface thermometer (which I wish I'd had last year before I put in the insulation). I'll see what happens when it gets really hot here.
Sue(tm) Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!
What a great use for that feature! I was wondering what to do when I'm away in the hot weather, particularly for the cats. Of course, they can hide out in the basement but I worry :) And it will be nice not to come back to a sauna.
Thanks for the idea. Sue(tm) Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!
I did not know about the energy comparison - seems high to me. It seems that it should not take so much energy to move the heat out. If so, would Heat Pumps make sense?
It seems to me this is an incredible waste for a tiny return. If I were leaving for 2 days, I would turn the AC off entirely. When I came home, I'd turn it back on, and wait until it did its job.
If it's 90 degrees out and you're cooling your place to 80, you're wasting loads of electricity and money. If it's only 2 degree difference, you're still wasting some.
Why not just keep the bathtub almost full of 80 degree water so that when you want a bath, you just add a little more hot water and it's ready? Or keep the car's engine idling all the time so the car is ready to go.
This is what I hve read in other brands' owners manuals.
Yes, the fan doesn't use much electricity, and I have always found it surprising that they named it that. I want the fan off when the AC is off because the constant noise is annoying. During the day, and even moreso during the night, becuase often it cools off enough at night that the AC turns off for the rest of the night, and one could have actual silence if the fan turned off too.
I had a room ac in Brooklyn, and it didnt' turn the fan off between cycles, so I rewired it so it did. No cutting or soldering or anything was necessary. Because it had spade connectors, it was just a matter of taking 3 connections apart and putting them back together in a different order. The goal was to put the thermostat in front of both the fan and the compressor, instead of having the fan in front of the thermostat, so the fan wire is always hot when the AC is ON, and the fan runs all the time. If the fan is in exact parallel with the compressor, when one is on the other is on.
Some might worry I suppose that that model wasn't designed for the fan to go off, but there's almost no difference and it worked just fine.
The fan in an AC is not very useful for personal comfort, when the compressor isn't on, espcially when one is sleeping and isn't moving very far. What works well then is a slow fan blowing right on your body, or your face if the rest of your body is covered by a sheet or blanket**. For much less money and much less noise, one can have a much bigger breeze.
The AC is rarely in a place where its vent louvers will direct the breeze at your body, and because of the convoluted path through the ac and the vents, the fan motor makes much more noise for what breeze is geenerated than does a plain table fan. I use a fan speed control, meant for a wall, but installed in a platic box that I place next to my bed, to lower the speed until I can't hear the fan but I can still feel the breeze. There are other ways to do this too. Please post a question if interested.
**It was hard not to use any covers at all, but I learned in my late
20's or 30's to sleep without any sheet or blanket. It's much more comfortable in the summer time, unless the room is 70 or less. After that I switched to very lighweight pajamas, stopped wearing the top, and eventually, by my mid or late 30's, stopped wearing anything, with no cover. That makes an 80 degree room feel like a 70 degree room. I never have any 90 degree rooms at night, but I'm sure they would feel like 80.
I stopped using a tent when I went camping, unless it was raining or there was a need for privacy. A thin piece of ripstop nylon's not going to stop a raccoon or a bear. (Just don't take uneaten food into the tent.) But I think I was 42 before I learned to sleep outside, on top of the sleeping bag or a blanket, without any clothes. A group I belonged to had chosen a park in Southern NJ to go camping. As a group we were able to reserve our own island, and everyone else seems to like to sleep near each other. When everyone had chosen a place and most people were asleep, I took a walk to a place either I had found earlier or there was enough moonlight, about 300 feet from the others and because it was humid finally had enough incentive to sleep naked with no covers for the whole night. I know no one saw me or I wouldn't have gotten a lot of teasing the next day.
home, I'd turn it back on, and wait until it did its job.
If it were not for moisture in the air, you would be right. Or in an uninsulated house. Ever try to get a house cool and dry from 90? Don't happen for quite some time. Need to get the water out.
I have central air, and a 1400 sq. ft. townhouse (plus 700 sq.ft. basement), (and those may be differences from the OP but you haven't said about yours), but for me it takes about a hour, even after I go away for 5 days. And I live in Maryland with plenty of humidity, especially on the days I use the AC.
When I posted the first time, I already knew about humidity, and if it took 2 or 4 hours, I would still turn the AC off when I went away for
2 days.
I would hang out during the time it was cooling off in the room with the AC, if I couldn't take it anywhere else. But I can take it with no problem. Once one gets used to warm weather, he's used to it.
ALSO, If you leave the windows closed while your gone, the humidity won't increase. If you think it will increase, please explain.
Even if it did increase, that would just mean the AC is running more during those two days, because cooling the room requires removing the humidity. All the more reason to turn it off.
You may want to check the amount of insulation in the "floor" of your attic. For a long time I thought I had plenty, but it seems not. And the ventilation up there.
The higher the humidity and temperature the more the evaporator will absorb heat of both latent and sensible during its runtime. The higher the humidity the higher the latent condensation heatload ratio on the cooling coil. Study the graphs on the linked page below.
Humidity will increase with the windows and doors closed. No building is air tight. There is always air infiltration into a building. The more the wind blows the more air infiltration per hour. It pays to reduce air infiltration to a minimum!
Mostly I wanted to see if I could do it, and now that I have, I don't have any real desire to do it again. I don't know if I have ever had such a private place, also.
OTOH, it was hot all night and very humid and I sweated some even naked, even at night. Maybe it was so humid because it was an island surrounded by water, except for a little foot bridge. And it was south Jersey in the summer, maybe 20 miles from the southern edge of Jersey at the Delaware Bay, I guess it is. If I were in a place like that again, with privacy, I might do the same thing again, because I really hate being hot or sweating in my sleep.
Although some times, the notion that I'm an animal with animal urges bothers me, at other times I like to be as much like an animal as possible. But consistency in this matter is low on my list of priorities. Animals don't wear pajamas, so I don't know why I should.
BTW, when I sleep without a tent, it makes it very likely I'll wake up at dawn, so I was pretty sure I'd be up and dressed before the others were up. Despite that, I don't think I was but this was not the most exciting group of campers. They go up and had breakfast. They didn't go look for birdlife at dawn. So no one saw me.
On that, I am a very lucky guy. I used to get bit a lot by mosquitoes. From the time I was little. I had bumps all over, and sometimes had bumps on top of bumps. But as close as I can tell, after I turned 21 I never was bothered by a mosquito again. I thought it might reverse, but I'm 59 now. Either they don't bite me, or they do and it doesn't swell up or itch. It's inconceivable IMO that I'm not around mosquitoes up to a dozen times a year or more. I've been with other people who are complaining about being bitten.
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