Originally posted by: dtyn
Originally posted by: rh71
I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind "saving money if you left it on all day"... You're using the air conditioner at X wattage for X kwh. I thought those were constant. Does the wattage go up if you set the A/C to a lower temperature ? How does it save you money if it's using electricity all day as opposed to 1-2 hours just to cool the place down ?
The arguement there is that air conditioners, when left on all day, don't actually run all day. They cycle on and off to maintain a certain temperature and humidty level. The thermostat tells them what the target is, and what they're curently at, then the air conditioner decides when to turn on and cool/heat and when to rest.
In a Constant Air system, like most residential buildings have, you have a coil that controls temperature and a constant cfm blowing out. If you left you AC off all day and the the building temp rose to 85 degrees, and your target temp was 74 degrees, when you got home and turned the AC on to cool the house down, that coil would have to pump refrigerant through to cool the air to a temp of about 40 degrees, putting alot of strain on the unit, and raising the enegy bill. But if you left the AC on, and it kept a constant flow of 55 degree air, the unit wouldn't use as much energy and wouldn't put too much stress on the unit.
A bad comparision would be relating it to track. Take a 400 runner and a 1600 runner. The 400 runner goes all out for a short amount of time, and dies at the end. The 1600 runner paces, and when they get done, they're are usually able to still stand/talk/walk around. The 400 runner exerted a mass amount of energy in a short period of time, while the 1600 runner used a little less energy over an extended period of time. Yes I know, that comparision sucked, but I'm tired, and it's all I could think of.