How to Save Money (a LOT) on Cooling Your House, Air Conditioning, AC for less

How Save Money on Your Summer Electric Bill - and Still Stay Cool!

Sometimes it seems like the utilities (electric, water, gas)are a scam, it seems like the bills keep going up no matter how much you cut back. Welcome to the world of government-regulated monopolies.

But actually, there are things you can do to reduce your utility bills, especially your electric bill.

We put this to the test in summer of 2024. Using a house that had a connect electric meter that provided detailed electricty usuage reports, we tested differemnt methods to achieve the same result: a comfortably cpool house on hot summer days.

What we tried:

Whole house central air conditioning, SEER 13, in a brick house, built in 2003.
Portable/window AC units, cooling bedrooms at night, opening windows at night, in other rooms and closing them during the day.
Opening windows and
using a house exhaust fan (in the upstairs ceiling, which vents into the attic)
or
exhaust box fans in upstairs windows, intake box fans in downstairs windows

Box fan in window

Results: How and what worked

$600 electric bill for 30 days, Whole house AC: keeping it at 80 F, on a tiered summer plan at $0.13 per kw hour.
TThe house was confortably cool
$175 to $220 electric bill for 30 days, with Portable/window dual-air-hose, inverter AC units, cooling bedrooms at night and an office room during the day, all set at 76 F , on a tiered summer plan at $0.13 per kw hour. The actual cost varied depending upon how much we used it during the day.
This worked VERY well. We were amazed at how efficient these inverter typpe units with two air hoses are. They drain their condensate water over the hot exhaust coils, thus improviong the efficiency AND evaporting the majority of the wate.
Note that the older types with ONE hose have 2 liabilities:
1. they suck hot humid outside make-up air into the house.
2. Since they do not blow the hot air over the water, they produce a LOT of water like 1 to 2 gallons per day, which you must collect and drain.
$165 just opening windows and using fans in upstairs windows, intake fans in down stairs windows, , on a tiered summer plan at $0.13 per kw hour. .
We found that by putting a 20in by 24" furnace air filter behind the downstairs intake fans , we kept dust, pollen, allergens and other particulates out of the house. You can see it in the photo, behind the fan.
How it works:
The downstairs fans blow cool are into the house and since hot air rises, the upstairs exhaust fans blow the hot air out of the house.
If you have a 1 stoory house, just choose windows on the upwind side of the hous (usually the western side) and put the fans in the bottom of the winde, and put the exhaust fans on the other end of the house in the top half of the window.
The house usually cool at night but became hot during the day, usually after 2 or 3 pm, if you closed the windows each morning by 8 am, and then reopened them and during the fams on again at 7 pm.
It worked the best when the nighttime temperature was below 70 F and the daytime temperature was below 85F. Under those conditions it work very well. The only exception was when outside humidity went about 65%. In that case, you never felt cool on the hot days

Conclusions

Considering that the HiSense portable units we used cost about $200 (it seems to be up to $250 now) for a Refurbished unit, most easily found on Amazon (or about $300 new in Costco or Sams Club),
they paid for themselves in 1 month.

They are portable, and have nothing sticking out of the windows, essentiallly nothing visible from the street, so those living in HOA's (HomeOwner's Associations) can almost always use this!

These units have 4 modes, too:

AC (cooling and dehumdifying)
Dehumidifying only
Fan only
Heating

They use dual hoses (one for intake air, another to exhaust the hot air andf humidity) so they are very efficient.

As the units cool the air, the mpoisture in the air condenses and the unit blows the hot air of the condensed water, thus evaporating it and exhausting it from the house.

If the humidity in the room is above 50% you may need to attach a drain hose (which is included) and put it into a small bucket to emppty ever few days. That is no fault of the design or manufacturer, it's merely a consequence of basic physics. Just ask Issac Newton or Boyle.