TLDR: what dictates the amount of power consumed by heating/cooling utilities?
We all grew up knowing that touching the thermo was a no no. And that just slightly adjusting it away from a nominal temperature would raise the bill significantly. But why is this?
In my head I think of it like this. If a house is 80 degrees F, and you turn the ac down to 70. Then obviously a lot of power will be used to get the initial temp to 70. And it would make sense that if you kept turning the ac off and letting your house go back up to 80 and then turning it on again, then you would use considerably more power. Due to the large difference being displaced each time.
But let’s say the temp of the house was 71, you turn the temp to 70. It’s only gotta cool 1 degree. No big deal right?
Okay well if you keep your ac/heat set to a certain temp – then your ac kicks on every time the temp increases/ decreases past the set temp. Let say for conversation it kicks on after 1 degree difference.
If that’s the case then why is it so much harder to keep a house cool at 65 vs 75 in the summer, or 75 vs 65 in the winter. If the temp only moved 1 degree before kicking on then like what’s the difference?
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Basically, the farther your homes temperature is from the outside the harder the outside is going to work to make sure that isn’t the case.
This relationship is based on the difference in temperature and it basically completely linear.
So for example if you house is at 70 degrees, and it’s 60 degrees out. That’s a 10 degree difference you need to maintain.
But if you increase your house’s temp to 71 degrees now you have a 11 degree difference and basically have to work 10% harder and use 10% more energy to keep your house at 71.
Using your example of ” If the temp only moved 1 degree before kicking on then like what’s the difference?” the difference is how long before your AC/heat needs to kick in again.
For example, I live in a cold climate and on *really* cold days my furnace is basically constantly on just fighting to maintain the current temp. But on days that are less cold it might run for an hour or so total throughout the day.
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