Hello from the Arizona Desert

[az1324]

Oh ok I was thinking that you supercooled the house down to like 65 in the morning and then let the temp gradually rise during the day instead of just keeping the thermostat at 78 all day. But sounds more like switching it off and bearing the extra heat.

For instance if you take the same amount of energy that you would use during on-peak running the A/C at a constant setpoint of 78 and use it all in the block of time immediately before on-peak so you've shifted all that usage to off-peak rates. I would like to see how cool the house could get and stay using that strategy. Maybe I will try it.

 

[draythomp]

Hah, this is a communication problem. I do supercool the house in the morning and let it coast through the afternoon however, my definition of cool and yours are different. In my case, I start to shiver and get the jacket out when the temperature drops into the low 70s. Heck, I get the motorcycle out and have a nice ride at 100F. So pre-cooling to me means taking it way down to 74 or so. To you that would probably be like 64 or so. I open the doors and let the outside air in at 85 because it feels good.

It's a matter of preference. So, lets do this in relative terms. I pre-cool the house to about 10F below what I usually keep it starting at 10AM and let the tile floor chill (remember, relative) a bit. Then at noon I turn the compressors off on the heat pumps and let the house coast without further cooling for the afternoon until 7PM. On days where the temperature outside gets to 115 or so I see an internal increase of up to 15 degrees. I do run the recirculating fans on a 10 min cycle a couple of times an hour and occasionally a floor fan to move the air around and keep things equal.

The big negative is when someone opens TWO doors and the hot wind blows through. Another factor is keeping the sun from shining directly through a window and heating the floor. So I have to wait until the sun is high enough so it won't shine directly through a window before opening any blinds or curtains.

So, scale it a bit, if you take it down to 64 and then coast through the afternoon, you would only get up to 80 or so on the hot days. That makes me wonder if I should try that this summer. Just turn the A/C on full blast for three hours or so and really cool it down. That would avoid peak charges and start the house off at a much lower point. Thanks for the question, that's how ideas get rolling.