For context I am located in Florida and I keep my AC at 76 and never keep the doors opened, but the blinds are up because we have house plants. People say to turn AC to 80 in the day to make it cheaper since my electricity ends up being 200$+ on average. Wouldn’t it cost more for it to constantly being going up to 80 and back to 76!?????
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It’s not going to take any energy to go from 76 to 80 degrees; the air conditioner is just going to turn off for a bit and heat is going to leak in through the building, and that heat was going to leak in anyway so you’re just asking your machine to not work as hard to take as much of it back out.
Running a colder temperature at night is both easier because it’s not as hot outside, and cheaper because nighttime electricity rates are cheaper than daytime rates (if your electric provider does split rates).
No.
Your AC is battling the heat gain into your apartment. This effort is proportional to the heat difference between inside and outside.
If you let it warm up while you’re not there the rate of heat gain rate is slower while it’s warmer, so the AC is working less.
When you come home and turn it back to 76 you just have to cool the air down once, this takes a lot less energy than keeping it cool the entire time.
Or in another way:
Say your apartment takes 30 minutes to warm up to 80 after your turn the thermostat up, then it stays there the next 9 hours until you come home. You only have to undo the first 30 mins, not the full 9 hours and 30 mins.
If you have an outside temperature higher than 80, the AC on cold will make it colder than the outside. If the AC is actively on all day at 80, then it will be the same cost as if it was at set at 76 since the cost is based on how long it it’s blowing air. The AC does not work harder to get to a colder temp, it just works longer to get to the colder temp. It will take more time for the house to reach 76 than 80. If you are at home all day, then it would be useful to leave it as it is. If you return home at a specific time, just program the AC to turn on at a specific time before you get home.
They’re not telling you to change your temp from 76 to 80. They’re saying only use 80, lmao. They are telling you to use 80 during the day and turn it off at night.
TLDR; set your AC to 80, that’s it. Dont touch the temp. Just turn it off and on
No, the cost of maintaining full AC over a day is generally greater than the cost at half AC for the day, and cooling to full when you come home. I have not done any math for this case, but my gut says that 4 degrees Fahrenheit won’t affect cost much though. It might lower monthly costs by a few dollars, but I doubt it would be any more than that.
I assume 80 and 76 are temperature in Fahrenheit?
If so, 80 is a higher temperature, likely closer to the temperature outside, so it takes less work to keep your room at that temperature.
76 is colder than 80, a bigger difference from the outside and so requires more work and therefore more electricity.
in addition to what other people have said, it’s common for the price of electricity to change during the day. The big reason that people say to set the AC at 80 during the day but run it at night is because electricity is most expensive during the day to encourage people to use less. running your AC from 4-9 pm (as an example) is more expensive than running it from 9pm-1am even though it’s the same amount of time.
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