Electric usage with central AC in heatwave

I just did a test to see how much electricity my house uses in this heatwave. We had a high of 95 yesterday, it got down to low 80s overnight. I measured from 9AM yesterday to 9AM today. 46Kwh, which at my rates is about $6. That is for the whole 3100 sq ft house, including central AC set to 77. House is partially shaded.

So, I'm quite happy with my 5 year old Rheem system. It's just a 14 SEER, basic system, nothing fancy other than an ECM blower motor. It's using a PSC motor on the condenser unit, because the fancy ECM one died and I replaced it with this $80 one that hopefully will last because it doesn't have the electronic crap.

I think usage here without either heat or AC is around $70 a month. If we had an entire month of heatwave like this, my bill would be ~$180, which seems very reasonable, with about $110 attibutable to the AC. My summer bills have been very modest, but usually we only have a real hot day or two, so I was curious to see how it performs during an exceptional day. It's definitely using a lot less than the old system, probably

1/2 the electricity. Yipee!
Reply to
trader_4
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Very reasonable. Last month I averaged 42 kWh per day for the month, up from 32 kWh for the same period last year. I pay .169

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Heatwave?? In the summertime SW desert we generally run daily highs of

106 to 118.

My 1800 sq ft house costs around $220/mo. Not sure how much is AC. However my kids with bigger houses run from $300 to $600/mo which is not unusual here. (The good news is I've never had to shovel snow.)

Reply to
AL

I bet the nights cool down tho

Reply to
gfretwell

Yup. Just checked. The low this coming AM will be a cool 85...

Reply to
AL

You are looking for a lot of joules These days a panel protector like the ones Ditek sells are cheap enough to put right on your A/C disconnect Since I was feeding my air handler with 6ga for the toaster wire heat I extended the #6 ground all the way to the condenser and drove a rod. If it is not bonded to the service ground, with a #6 minimum, it is not worth doing (or legal).

How many Joules is a lot of Joules???

Reply to
hrhofmann

1000 J with a response time in nanoseconds will get the job done.
Reply to
gfretwell

I'l give you the one I took off, because it was brought up here about it being a fire hazard. Burnt a few houses. I think that was last year. I would recommend one fully encased in metal.

Greg

Reply to
gregz

Yeah, this is by far the hottest summer of my life.

And last summer was one of the coolest, only 4 or maybe 6 days over

  1. this summer 34 so far counting today and one or two more predicted.

Do you remember my plan to blow air from the basement up to the second floor. I found only one fan the right diameter, but it was perfect, and it sits in teh mouth of the laundry chute. (When I have laundry, I take the fan out and through the clothes down the chute. Takes 10 extra seconds to take it out and 20 to put it back in.)

Well the air it blows is very cool, 10 degrees below what's here, but the chute is right next to the stairwell, which has no doors, so I think a lot of it falls down the stairs. When I'm in the bathroom right across the hall from the chute it's really nice.

But in the office, I dont' feel an effect. I looked into getting a hose, and a 20 foot, 8" hose is guess how much, about 300 dollars!

But a similar hose, 4" diameter, for a clothes dryer is 20. Since the amount of material is only half, I don't know why the ratio is

1:15. But anyhow, for next summer, I may make an adapter so I can use the 4" hose with the 8 1/2 " fan. I'm sure that will work well.

I have a "portable" AC in the bedroom and though i'm sure it's not as efficient as central AC, I'm sure it's a lot cheaper than doing the whole house, even though the first floor and the basement are still pretty comfortable. IF the computer will still in the basement and the loft bed there wasn't making me claustrophobic, which it didn't used to do, I'd be fine in the basement..

Reply to
Micky

Ours has been hot for us too. Believe the news said it is the 6th hottest summer on record. IIRC around 26 days over

110 so far. It's killed around 6 local hikers (and 1 dog) who underestimated the heat danger.

In the 40's when I moved to the SW desert most people here used swamp coolers. When the humidity is low they can bring the inside temperature down as much as 30 degrees. However when the dew point gets above 55 coolers suck. But they were easy on the electric bill at around 25% the cost of AC.

BTW they also actually had swamp coolers for cars that hung outside on the window. But most of us just turned the wing all the way around for more air which helped except when it swept a bee into the passenger compartment.

Reply to
AL

I'll take the heat all summer and I'll take the snow all winter.

I can wear less in the summer and I can shovel the snow all winter.

You can't dress for floods and you sure can't shovel water.

I feel for those poor souls in Louisiana, Texas, Wisconsin and on and on.

3 pages of floods in 2016 alone:

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Reply to
DerbyDad03

Heat is uncomfortable. Cold is painful. IMO of course.

Reply to
AL

The uncomfortableness of heat and the pain from cold is short-lived.

The uncomfortableness and pain from a flood can last a long, long time.

IMO of course.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Yes, I feel terrible for the people in flood zones.

Although for the first 20 years I lived here, I wondered if I was in one. The flood people said I was. I live right next to a stream that can rise from 8" deep to 10' deep within a day, most of that within 6 hours. On a nice night when the windows were open, the roar of the water has been so loud it woke me up.

Baltimore has been very interested in flooding since Hurricane Agnes, I think it is, 1975 maybe, during which a few houses were washed away, so they have automated solar-powered remote stream level meters on all the streams, and tried to not issue building permits where flooding was possible. Though I'm told that during construction here, one house was damaged by flooding and they ??abandoned that lot, or maybe hoped it woudn't happen again, or maybe it never happened.

In the last year I found a government webpage which had a drawing of my n'hood and showed where the water is during flood stage. And I'm glad to say that the drawing (a prediction I presume) is wrong. Becausea it has my front yard and that of several houses to the left of mine flooded, as well as the street in front of these houses. That has never happened in 37 years and I have reasons to think think it could not, so the whole rating of my property as a flood zone seems likely to be in error. I'm very happy to realize that.

Not to compare a flooded basement with what those people have, it's still related: When the water rises to 10' or a little lower, it overflows the manholes on the sewer that paralleles the stream, fills the sewer and backs up through the laundry sinks in my house, the house next to it at the same height, and the two next to that, only a llittle higher (The houses next to those two are only a little higher still but they don't have the problem.) One would think the water in the sink and on the floor would be disgusting, but since the ratio of rain-water to sewer water is maybe a million to one, at least 100,000 to one, it hasn't been at all.

But I still don't want the water, getting soaked up by anything that can.

We had rain just two weeks ago and despite what I told them, all 3 of my floodable neighbors had flooded basements. My next door n'bor had big rugs drying on his lawn for two days. I told him what to do, I even did half of it for him. I told him he needed a stopper in the sink, with a piece of 1x jambed in between the stopper and a shelf he has, fortunately, right above the sink, with enough weight on the shelf, or it screwed well to the wall, that the water can't push out the stopper. And I measured and cut him the right piece of wood. And I told him several times, it has to be plugged all the time becuase you won't be around to plug it when it rains. And I knew he'd mess up because the girl who lived here before him messed up, and I told her several times. And he was sleeping when it flooded.

But I am surprised about the other two, who have been here for quite a while, including previous overflow-level streams**, and I told them what to do but I guess they didnt' do it. **With one or both, I showed her how to siphon the water out of the sink, into the sump, the last time, and I know I talked about plugging it. This time, like

99% of the time, I had my sink plugged and I got no water.

If the water were able to stay at maximum or a little less for long enough, and the sinks were not plugged, the basements would fill with water to a height of 6 or 7 feet. But the stream only stays that high for an hour or two, and the sink is a buffer, and boxes have soaked up a bunch, but before I learned to keep the sink plugged all the time, I've only had a quarter inch on the floor, and only once did it get to the next room.

Reply to
Micky

I stayed someplace for a few days that had a swamp cooler. It was in the hall and even with my door open, it didn't have much effect on me. So I went to the back yard to sleep, and it was made out of gravel, bigger than normal gravel, so it wasn't very pleasant, and it was still hot.

But FTR, that's not the same as a portable AC, which is a real AC, but it's not in the window or wall, and the condenser is not outside, but right in the same device, about the size and shape of a floor radio, if you know what that is. Then it has usually one, sometimes two, 4" vinyl hoses, one that vents the heated air through the window to the outside. The inefficiency is mostly that the warm hose radiates some of the heat back, and the thing in the window can leak and isn't insulated at best. And maybe the whole cooling part is not efficient though it could be.

You need to empty the condensed water periodically, or you can connect a hose, like I did and I drilled a hole in the floor, in the closet, where the second floor overhangs the first floor, in the corner in the rear, so it's not noticeable at all. In fact, I haven't even checked if water is comign out. It could be that insects clogged the tube last fall/winter/spring, but the floor is dry so I guess not.

Reply to
Micky

There's almost no limit to how much clothes you can put on, but there is a limit to how much you can take off. Especially if you want to go shopping.

Reply to
Micky

Agnes was the only time my street in Md flooded. I knew enough to buy a lot at the top of the hill so I was OK but I had a couple of neighbors who had 3' of water running through their house. They actually built a house at the bottom of the hill (next to where the creek was 12' over the bank) a few years later but I never heard of another flood like that there. It is certainly not a question of "if" but when.

Reply to
gfretwell

I find heat (especially on sunny days) to be much worse.

BTW, On August 8, between 4PM and 5PM, Texas set a record for electricity use.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Do you remember their address?

I think Ellicott City had big trouble during Agnes, and 2 weeks ago it had big trouble again but not in the exact same place. It's at the bottom of a hill too.

And I'm at the bottom of a hill too. I found an online map with better topograhpy, and I think the hill is 40 feet high which is not that much but it still gathers a lot of water.

The stream only goes 4 or 5 miles farther upstream, so that limits how high the flood can be.

Reply to
Micky

Was that a Trump Hotel?

Reply to
Jake

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