We are having very warm temperatures in Utah right now. When I go to the national weather service it has a message saying, "Excessive Heat Warning." Basically if you go outside, you run the risk of spontaneously bursting into flames. I don't mind too badly as my air conditioner is fairly new and does a great job of keeping the inside of my house comfortable.
One problem with air conditioning is that it can be expensive during really warm weather. I have done what I can to limit how much it runs including painting my house white and using white tiles on my roof. When I had to have my roof replaced, the salesperson said the color of the tiles shouldn't make much of a difference. Interestingly I chose the tiles with the Energy Star rating and my electrical bill is consistently 50% less than it was with my previous tiles. In other words, the salesperson was ignorant and white roof tiles make a huge difference.
To help keep my air conditioning costs down I also set my thermostat to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. That is a great daytime temperature as I can hang out in shorts and a t-shirt inside. My office likes to keep the temperature much colder and people run around in jackets and blankets. It is a good thing I don't have to go in every day.
One more thing you can do to keep electrical costs down in the summer is to leverage free air conditioning with the cool night air. The only downside is you can't rely on an outside source to know when it is okay to open your windows. I have an Amazon Show in my family room that always displays the outside temperature as reported by the national weather service. Unfortunately it is never the same as my actual outside temperature. How do I know? I have an electronic thermometer that displays its reading on my weather station inside. I keep the sensor in the shade on the north side of my house. I don't even think about opening a window until my weather station tells me the outside is at least a half degree cooler than the inside.
There are about 20 days in the summer where the outside temperature never gets low enough for me to open my windows. When I fell asleep last night, my bedroom was about 3 degrees cooler than the outside. It was still 2 degrees cooler this morning when I woke up. I expect a few more days of this but will still watch nightly as I enjoy seeing how cool I can get my house with free air conditioning.
That outdoor thermometer has more than paid for itself. Sometimes I will go outside and think the house is warmer inside. Often that just means there is a slight breeze which makes it feel cooler even though it isn't. Having a trusted temperature source helps me convince others that live with me to keep the windows closed for just a bit longer.
Finally it is important to know that unless you have many zones for your air conditioner, not all rooms in your house are at the same temperature. My house has 3 levels and the basement is always cooler than the other 2. The master bedroom is in the top level and always the warmest being about 3 degrees warmer than the level below it. When it is time to open windows, I start upstairs. I have thermometers on each level of the house and only when the outside temperature drops below the inside temperature for that level do I open those windows.
The system is not foolproof but it works fairly well for dry western states like Utah. I was talking with someone recently that said the difference between high and low humidity is that with low humidity, it does get cool in the shade. For me, that means when the sun goes down, it gets cool. Sometimes very quickly and I appreciate that.
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