Originally Posted by GomerPyle
Originally Posted by Wahoo
Originally Posted by eclipse829
Mine is set on 67 and its keeping it 69 right now. I don't care how high the power bill gets, we gonna keep it below 70 if we have to put a commercial unit on the roof and a window unit in every other window.


I'd look at your insulation situation first. That can make a big difference. Even if all you can do is add it to the attic, it will help, perhaps a lot. Also look at your window and door seals.

When we lived in an 1909 house that leaked air like a sieve, we did have some trouble keeping it at the set point on the hottest days. I kept a note by the thermostat that said "Do not touch. A thermostat is an on/off switch controlled by a thermometer. Turning it lower will not make it cool down any faster." Otherwise, sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and the house would be 65 degrees because I hadn't noticed that it had been turned down the afternoon before trying to cool the house down faster.

That's maybe not 100% true for more modern multi-stage systems that control for humidity, etc., but for most systems it is.


If I have had that conversation with my wife once, I've had it a dozen times...........there is something about the lack of a Y chromosome that causes people to not comprehend that turning a home AC lower does not change the temp of the air coming out of the vents. She has asked me before to "turn it down" (cooler) and I've had to explain that "honey, it's already running, turning it down cooler won't do anything."

All I usually get is a *blank stare*

I think in their minds, they think it's like modern car AC's with "climate control"


Yeah, I thought my note by the thermostat was clever and it made me feel better, but the only real solution was to check the thermostat when I got home on real hot days and make sure it hadn't been fiddled with. I remember waking up several times in the middle of summer and I could see my breath the house was so cold. Those were some high electric bills. 5 ton unit for less than 2,000 square feet, in a balloon-framed hundred year old house with 11 foot ceilings. That one did have a hard time keeping it more than 20 degrees colder than outside, but that wasn't an HVAC issue, it was a house issue.