Air Con Temperature settings

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Dairyxox

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#970178 20-Jan-2014 17:56

Fatter people tend to feel the heat more/sweat easier, and tend to blast the AC at 18degC during summer. Really annoying when you have to share the space with them. And vice-versa

My pet peeve with aircon is retail shops. Ones that have AC but refuse to use it because of the costs (take my business elsewhere if I cant stand to be in their shops). And i'll stand around in shops that do have good ac, even if i'm not interested in their product range, if it helps me beat the temperature extremes (not sure if this is a good thing for them or not?)

Another funny story, when I visited a sub-arctic city in China, ALL the shopping malls had the AC set to about 30degC. So you go out with all your woolies on, then when you get in the mall, you feel the need to strip off (better have come in 'layers'). Then have to put it all back on when you go out again. Plus carry it all around with you in the mall.

shrub

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#970185 20-Jan-2014 18:04

I have my work units key locked at 21c all year round its comfortable and no sweating. Also i believe that if you crank it up to 25+ in winter and 16c in summer it makes the units over work and they fail.

k1wi

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#970193 20-Jan-2014 18:13

I just did the conversion between F and C and don't feel so bad at how I used the in-window AC unit when I was in Boston last year...

I felt as guilty as sin turning it on to 74 after spending time outdoors during the hottest period (95F/35C), but now I realise that's actually 23.3C... With the lower humidity in the room it certainly felt a lot colder than that.

Technofreak

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#970333 20-Jan-2014 21:51

Kopkiwi:So if I am reading this right a summer temp of around 22 is more beneficial and a winter temp is maybe 24 is more preferable to blasting a 26/27 on the dial?

I guess the actual temp may vary slightly but I reckon about 21-23 degrees all year round is about right. From what others have said on here this seems to be about the right temperature to set the air con at.

Setting 26-27 doesn't heat the place up any quicker as the air con can only produce as much heat as it is capable of and will keep working at max capacity till it gets to the preset temperature. I believe 26-27 is too warm and you're wasting energy keeping the house at this temperature.

The same applies for cooling 16-17 is way too low and you're wasting energy trying to keep the temperature down there plus it won't cool the room any quicker.

The secret is controlling the humidity.

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Handle9

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#970350 20-Jan-2014 22:46

Some basic theory first: Your unit doesn't have one setpoint, it has two - a heating setpoint and a cooling setpoint. These are typically offset either side of your "setpoint" you see on your remote/wall controller. A typical offset (or deadband) is 0.5K to 1K either side of setpoint. The goal of the airconditioner is to stay between these two setpoints. When it's between these it's doing nothing (except maybe running its fan).

An inverter heatpump will apply heating cooling over a range of 0-100% typically over a 2K range -i.e if it's 1 degree away from setpoint it will apply 50% cooling. This is called proportional control.

e.g. If your setpoint is 22 degrees the heat pump won't start cooling until the temperature hits 22.5 degrees (if there is a 1K dead band and won't get to full cooling until it hits 24.5 degrees. It will alter this slightly if it is taking too long to get back down to set point (called integral action) but that's the basic idea.

It does this in a similar way with the fan (typically 3 speed).

That's how it's designed to work. Humidity does make the units work harder but it's not a huge deal really.

In summer you can have the setpoint set higher than in winter. This seems a bit counter intuitive but the two things that are important are the differential between outside and inside and what you are wearing. In winter people are wearing heavier clothes than in summer. You also feel the difference when you move from outside to inside. If it's 10 degrees outside a 20 degree room feels warm. If it's 30 degrees outside a 23 degree room feels cool(ish). The differential is important, especially in a shop situation.

21-22 in winter and 22-23 in summer is very comfortable typically.

The other thing is as others have said - set the temperature and leave it the hell alone. If it's sized correctly then it'll work hard for a bit to get down to setpoint and then float. If you play with the setpoint constantly you get poor control and you also wear the compressor more as it will be starting and stopping constantly. At the end of the day compressor starts are what will wear out your heatpump, not run time.

bender

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#971871 21-Jan-2014 20:36

At home I have a ducted heat pump which works great all year round. During summer it is locked to cooling only and has a setback option so it runs 24C during the day and 22C during sleeping hours. For the winter months it's locked to heating only at 22C during the day and 20C at night.

It runs 24x7x365 which is great, house is always very comfortable and power bills went down about $50/month once we started running it 24x7 (it's a 14kW system).

As above, set the temps and lock the controller, people fiddling are what make it uncomfortable and expensive to run

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blakamin

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#971969 21-Jan-2014 22:05

Ours spent 3 days non-stop on 18 last week. Mind you, we had 5 days over 42 and the lowest room temp (read with a multimeter) was 26.3 at 4am(outside was still above 32). In winter it goes on 25 and the room is about 23.
The joys of renting with a crappy a/c unit.

Most places here are ducted.

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