Your Questions About Save Energy Air Conditioner

adminsta answers:

I cannot give you a brand name but I can say that when I put on a new water-cooled air conditioner on my house, it saved me a bundle. On top of that, your local power company may be willing to give you a credit like mine did. Check with them to see.

I hope this helps.

adminsta answers:

The simplest answer is to call up any distributor and get the price in your area for a top of the line Carrier or Trane. The units with the highest SEER and EER ratings are the most efficient ones.

If you want to get technical, you can go to http://www.ceedirectory.org/ceedirectory/pages/cee/ceeDirectoryInfo.aspx and do a search to find a list of everything available that has been tested and find the highest rated unit.

I assume that you want to save energy and have a comfortable house — not just own a complex piece of equipment. To cool your house efficiently, consider the following:

1) Improve your attic insulation and ensure the attic is well ventilated. If your ceilings are hot, you will waste a lot of energy trying to cool the house.

2) Install ceiling fans. A breeze will allow you to use higher temperature settings and still be comfortable.

3)Use a setback thermostat so that it doesn’t stay on all night.

4)Use zoning (multiple units — one for the upstairs bedrooms and one for the rest of the house perhaps).

However, if you want to really get efficient, you need to look beyond SEER and EER ratings on conventional coolers. If your climate is reasonably dry, an evaporative cooler would be vastly more efficient than any compressor based air-to-air cooler (the standard AC unit).

Go to Google books and search “Evaporative Air-conditioning Applications for Environmentally Friendly Cooling – World Bank Technical Papers” for a free copy of a good paper on this under utilized technology.

Ground water is cool (about 50F), geothermal pumps are very efficient, and can provide you heating and cooling. Ceiling fans are efficient. Adding better attic insulation also pays off.

The bottom line is cost/performance tradeoff. You will likely find you cannot afford the most efficient AC unit because there is always a large price premium for the last bit of performance. The exception is the evaporative cooler. This technology is not only energy efficient, the construction costs are low and there are no refrigerants to pollute the environment. Their only limitation is that they do not perform well in humid climates.

If you can digest all this, you will know more than the salesmen will and probably save yourself a few thousand and be able to educate others.

Have fun and hope this helps.

adminsta answers:

If you refer to a wide concept, there is not any saving, as the heat you remove it is due to the use of energy to move the compressor and evaporator, you just are doing an interchange between the A/C unit and the energy source.
If you want to save money by controlling the use of your A/C unit, is better if you keep the unit always running at a moderate temperature setting.
Remember, some initial time is taken by the unit to stabilize the temperature in the entire room, that time is a waste of money and it depends mainly of the size of your environment and the Btu of you A/C, if you repeat that some times in the day, you are wasting energy and money of course.

adminsta answers:

It will if you shut off the rest of the house from it

like if you just want a/c in your bedroom – make sure all the windows and shades are drawn and closed – shut off the vents to the rest of the house and close the door – when on the outside of the door stuff an old sheet in the crack to keep the cold in only that room

then it will

adminsta answers:

You can save money by not using it. Bottom line.

You buy them for comfort. To ensure that the model is not consuming more energy than it needs to, just make sure the air flow through the unit is unobstructed. Keep the indoor filter clean, and periodically/ seasonly open the cabinet and make sure the fins on both sets of coils are clear of dirt and debris. Also make sure the bottom drain holes are clear as well.

Try locate them if possible on the shady side of the house, if that is not an option and shading it some other way is not, you just have to live with it consuming a bit more energy than it would in shade.

If you are in a house- add radiant barrier to the attic space, ideally up against the roof deck as per the installation instructions rather than just across rafters. Also weatherizing the house as you would weatherize it for winter will aid as well.

adminsta answers:

If you are talking about the “window units” it will save you money. The amount will depend on the energy efficiency of the air conditioner and it’s seer rating . But be mindfull that those units are only made to coll or heat one room.