Author Topic: No A/C until June  (Read 20384 times)

workathomedad

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #50 on: June 19, 2014, 06:58:27 PM »
OH NO!!

We had a water leak today! I'm not even hot, but turned on the A/C to try and help dehumidify the house. FAILURE.

Mrs. Frugalwoods

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #51 on: June 19, 2014, 09:45:10 PM »
Still holding out with no A/C here in Boston. Things got dicey the other night as temps climbed, but the only one panting was our hound, so I think we can tough it out longer. I'd love to make it to... July. August? We shall see. It's still pretty temperate here, but our resolve may melt as we have more 90 degree days.

Gotta love Boston.  At the end of May, we went from wanting the AC on (we resisted) to wanting the heat on (we resisted), and yes, in that order of events.  I'm hoping to keep the AC off all summer long, or if we must, just put up our unit AC in the bedroom rather than use the whole house AC.  We got a beautifully cool finished basement.
Oooo all summer! I like it. We only have window units--no central air--but so far life's good with just a fan and open windows in the evenings and early mornings. Fingers crossed we can stay the course! You have a good point about the basement...ours is nice and cool. Sadly no beds down there, but I 'spose we could get creative on a really hot night.

horsepoor

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #52 on: June 19, 2014, 10:09:11 PM »
Forecast doesnt exceed low 90s.  Gonna shoot for keeping it off until we get back from California July 6.

CommonCents

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #53 on: June 20, 2014, 07:25:26 AM »
Still holding out with no A/C here in Boston. Things got dicey the other night as temps climbed, but the only one panting was our hound, so I think we can tough it out longer. I'd love to make it to... July. August? We shall see. It's still pretty temperate here, but our resolve may melt as we have more 90 degree days.

Gotta love Boston.  At the end of May, we went from wanting the AC on (we resisted) to wanting the heat on (we resisted), and yes, in that order of events.  I'm hoping to keep the AC off all summer long, or if we must, just put up our unit AC in the bedroom rather than use the whole house AC.  We got a beautifully cool finished basement.
Oooo all summer! I like it. We only have window units--no central air--but so far life's good with just a fan and open windows in the evenings and early mornings. Fingers crossed we can stay the course! You have a good point about the basement...ours is nice and cool. Sadly no beds down there, but I 'spose we could get creative on a really hot night.

We have an air mattress, so I'm planning to propose we sleep down there on the really hot nights.  I don't know if DH will agree.  I think he's more likely to agree on a non-work night.

RMD

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #54 on: June 20, 2014, 12:30:37 PM »
Ugh!  Working from home today.  It's currently 83 degrees in the house.  I've got fans going...but the humidity is crazy!  Not giving in though!  We'll be back down to the lower 70s maybe upper 60s tonight.  So I'm telling myself just a few more hours!

One benefit of the office job is them paying for the air... Nah!

ohyonghao

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #55 on: June 20, 2014, 02:45:37 PM »
Finally made it into the 70's today, but was a bit chilly on the ride to work.  Forecast keeps teasing me with predictions of 80+ that never come to fruition.  At this rate should make it through summer just fine.

Congratulations, John, on making it this far.  My sister-in-law has been blowing theirs since last month I think.  Although they are a bit more funny about it.  When I visited last year the routine was basically:
Turn on 30 minutes before going to bed but set the timer for 1 hour
Wake up in middle of the night sweating and uncomfortable, turn the timer back on for an hour
Wake up again two hours later and turn it back on for an hour

Not sure how much they save over just having it on all night.

johnintaiwan

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #56 on: June 20, 2014, 06:53:42 PM »
Finally made it into the 70's today, but was a bit chilly on the ride to work.  Forecast keeps teasing me with predictions of 80+ that never come to fruition.  At this rate should make it through summer just fine.

Congratulations, John, on making it this far.  My sister-in-law has been blowing theirs since last month I think.  Although they are a bit more funny about it.  When I visited last year the routine was basically:
Turn on 30 minutes before going to bed but set the timer for 1 hour
Wake up in middle of the night sweating and uncomfortable, turn the timer back on for an hour
Wake up again two hours later and turn it back on for an hour

Not sure how much they save over just having it on all night.

We had to do that last night. I woke up to ice chunks getting spat out on me and turned it off. As you probably know there is no central ac here, it is basically all window type units. We try to set ours for a few hours and let it just turn off. It usually stays cool until morning. I think it probably saves quite a bit of money only having it on in one room for a few hours a day.

erae

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #57 on: June 26, 2014, 07:19:13 AM »
We caved last night - I was trying to make it to July, but hadn't been sleeping well this week and thought the heat might be a contributor.  Slept.  Like.  A.  Rock.  :)

RMD

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #58 on: June 26, 2014, 07:22:40 AM »
We're gonna make it to July!  Cool evenings and the attic fan are our saving grace.  We've really only had one or two days that were rough.  The weather here lately has been very helpful to our cause! :)

mrsggrowsveg

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #59 on: June 26, 2014, 07:27:23 AM »
RMD:  The Kansas weather has been very agreeable for no air conditioning.  We still haven't turned ours on or even felt that it was necessary.  Our fans are always on and windows open.  We have a small unit that we can put upstairs if it gets too hot.  Our second floor is always significantly hotter than the first.

Mrs. Frugalwoods

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #60 on: June 26, 2014, 11:49:19 AM »
I'm really impressed by ya'll in hotter climes! We're still holding strong here in Boston, but it hasn't crested the 80s/90s much yet... CommonCents, how're you doing? :)

nordlead

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #61 on: June 27, 2014, 07:06:16 AM »
We've had two 89F days, and lots of really humid days, but still no AC for me. Odds are it'll go on in July, but if it never breaks 90, then it may stay off all year. Unlikely, as we typically have 2-3 days over 100.

RMD

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #62 on: June 27, 2014, 07:31:18 AM »
I'm finding the humidity the more difficult part to deal with.  My carpets felt damp the other day!  We've had a few days here lately without rain and with some nice breezes so it's been more bearable.  Sunday and Monday are probably going to be a little rough...90s and rain.  Blah!

My husband did just say that when we do cave and turn it on we should probably not be surprised if it doesn't work.  That's just our luck.  It is around 18 years old...and we will probably need to replace it at some point in the not so distant future.  Hoping we can eek out one more summer.

MoneyCat

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #63 on: June 27, 2014, 07:57:37 AM »
A couple days ago, it finally hit mid-90s, so we were forced to turn on the AC.  Unfortunately, the new furnace we installed last year had the central air unit attached improperly and we had water in the basement.  Luckily, everything was covered under warranty but we had no AC during a couple a really, really hot days.  I had to sleep downstairs with several fans turned on to get any shuteye at all.

CommonCents

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #64 on: June 27, 2014, 08:10:38 AM »
I'm really impressed by ya'll in hotter climes! We're still holding strong here in Boston, but it hasn't crested the 80s/90s much yet... CommonCents, how're you doing? :)

No AC, though we've turned on the window fan.  (The fan was broken for a while, and then when I tested it before we moved, it was working again miraculously.  Odd, but I'll accept it.)  I've been having trouble sleeping this week though and waking up a lot.  My husband far prefers the fan on over AC, but I have a much harder time with it.  Grew up with AC, not noisy fans.  Don't like the air blowing over me, I get cold from it more easily, hard falling asleep when my hair keeps moving on my face and it also means we hear so much street noise, as we live on a somewhat busy street.

Due to a rip in a screen in the window over his side of the bed that lets in mosquitos, we've got the fan blowing on my side.  I think I'm going to see if we can fix the rip this weekend and move it to his side and see if that helps any.  If it doesn't, I think I'm going to have to persuade him we use the whole house fan to cool down the apartment for an hour or two in the evening - and then we turn off all fans.

I just have to remind myself that my first year living in Boston I didn't have AC at all, and then again back in 2007-2009 I had no AC (until my now MIL decided to surprise us and buy a very small window unit for me and another for DH) and no fans of any type, including window, standing, whole house.

catccc

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #65 on: June 27, 2014, 08:25:04 AM »
I'm about 1 hr SW of Philly and we still haven't turned on A/C.  The kids' bedroom will be the first to get a window unit when we finally decide it's time.  (no central air, which I now prefer.  Grew up with it, thought it was nearly barbaric not to have it, but now prefer it for efficiency.  Just climate control the smaller spaces you are using, not the whole house.)

Mrs. Frugalwoods

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #66 on: June 28, 2014, 08:13:01 AM »
I'm really impressed by ya'll in hotter climes! We're still holding strong here in Boston, but it hasn't crested the 80s/90s much yet... CommonCents, how're you doing? :)

No AC, though we've turned on the window fan.  (The fan was broken for a while, and then when I tested it before we moved, it was working again miraculously.  Odd, but I'll accept it.)  I've been having trouble sleeping this week though and waking up a lot.  My husband far prefers the fan on over AC, but I have a much harder time with it.  Grew up with AC, not noisy fans.  Don't like the air blowing over me, I get cold from it more easily, hard falling asleep when my hair keeps moving on my face and it also means we hear so much street noise, as we live on a somewhat busy street.

Due to a rip in a screen in the window over his side of the bed that lets in mosquitos, we've got the fan blowing on my side.  I think I'm going to see if we can fix the rip this weekend and move it to his side and see if that helps any.  If it doesn't, I think I'm going to have to persuade him we use the whole house fan to cool down the apartment for an hour or two in the evening - and then we turn off all fans.

I just have to remind myself that my first year living in Boston I didn't have AC at all, and then again back in 2007-2009 I had no AC (until my now MIL decided to surprise us and buy a very small window unit for me and another for DH) and no fans of any type, including window, standing, whole house.

I also don't like the fan blowing on me at night and it's on my side of the bed too! Our solution is to open all doors & windows and run the window fan in the early mornings and all evening. We turn the fan off when we go to sleep and close the windows. We also live on a fairly busy street, so we don't want the noise or possible intruders. It does heat up overnight, but we're able to fall asleep before it gets too warm. Good luck!

RetiredAt63

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #67 on: June 29, 2014, 07:31:02 AM »
I caved today.  I have been able to cool the house down at night, but it was 23 this morning in the house, and it is going to 29 this afternoon with full sun.  If I can get the house down to 20, now I can turn off the AC in a few hours and go back to warm days/cool nights.  I am actually OK with the house heating to 25/26, but the dog (long heavy coat even in summer, this is as cool as her coat gets and she cannot be clipped) can only take so much.  If I am home in the afternoon she can go outside and find someplace cool, but I will be out this afternoon and she will be stuck in the house.  The things we do for our pets ;-)

The good side is that it is Sunday, so lowest Hydro rates all day.

Usually I can get by with about 10 days total running the AC, but every so often the house is hot and everything in it is hot, and I need to run it.  Usually those are also the most humid times, and I need to get the humidity down in the house as well.

mrsggrowsveg

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #68 on: June 30, 2014, 07:31:26 AM »
I think I will cave soon.  It has been really humid.  Like someone else said, my floors are sweating and everything just feels wet.  Luckily, this week won't be too hot so I think we can survive until July.

Cromacster

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #69 on: June 30, 2014, 07:57:27 AM »
Have kept mine AC off thus far.  Recently installed a ceiling fan in the bedroom so that should keep us going even further.  It is supposed to hit 90's this week, so we'll see how long this will last.

RMD

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #70 on: June 30, 2014, 08:01:41 AM »
I think I will cave soon.  It has been really humid.  Like someone else said, my floors are sweating and everything just feels wet.  Luckily, this week won't be too hot so I think we can survive until July.

Yes...everything feels damp.  Last night was warm but there was a breeze, so not too bad.  It's supposed to be cooler for the rest of this week, but DH is not handling the humidity well at all...and if I'm honest, I'm not handling HIM not handling the humbidity well.  ;)

RMD

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #71 on: July 01, 2014, 08:15:51 AM »
July 1st.  DH couldn't handle the humidity and turned on the a/c this morning.  I didn't check to see what he has it set to...

Mrs. Frugalwoods

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #72 on: July 01, 2014, 08:53:14 AM »
I regret to announce that we had to turn one AC unit on yesterday during the day because our poor little greyhound was panting and hot. Can't in good conscience leave her alone all day in a hot house while we're at our air-conditioned jobs. We did set it at 79 and turned it off and opened all the doors and windows as soon as we got home last night. However, all three of us woke up multiple times during the night because of the heat...grrrr, we might have to turn it on at night now too. Turns out, 85-90 degrees inside the house is not conducive to sleeping well :)

CommonCents

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #73 on: July 01, 2014, 09:37:16 AM »
Still going strong...though I did change my wallpaper to a winter photo :)  And DH even turned on the whole house fan, despite his persistent frustration it doesn't cool the house "immediately" as he thinks it ought.

We go away on vacation on Thursday, so I'm just hoping we can get through the heat until then. 

mrsggrowsveg

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #74 on: July 01, 2014, 10:07:52 AM »
We made it to July with only a few days I even wanted to have it on.  One of the best things about not turning on the AC is that it encourages us to get outside.  Since it isn't nicer inside, there is no encouragement to stay in there.  This week is a nice weather week so we still don't need it yet.  I would love to not turn it on at all this year, but we will see what the weather does.

ohyonghao

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #75 on: July 02, 2014, 02:46:57 PM »
July has picked up on the hot weather, 98* yesterday but the house only got to 77* by 6pm, and 80* by 9pm.  We ran fans in the windows creating a breeze and managed to cool downstairs to 74* by morning.  Probably could do better with 1 more fan and no train.  Because of the train my wife doesn't like leaving the bedroom window open all night.  This morning I opened our window and put the fan back in while I went to work.  After checking my cell phone I had my wife close the windows around 10am which is when it got back up to 68.  I expect that the house will remain cool like yesterday, if not even more so since the high is only 85* today.

We hope to cruise through the entire summer this way.

usmarine1975

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #76 on: July 02, 2014, 02:59:23 PM »
We made it to about the middle of June.  My wife is 7 months pregnant and we have a 2 year old.  Not exactly the best situation to sweat it out.  Besides I would rather not sweat it out myself.  Spent two tours in Iraq sweating enough to last a life time. 

That being said we have a fairly large home 3 floors not including the basement 5 bedroom 1.5 bath.  I open 2 windows in the 3rd floor with screens to allow the hot air to escape.  Would like to do a fan vent of some sort but do not have an attic so not sure how that would work. 

On the 2nd floor I placed a new 15,000 BTU unit that has a good energy efficiency rating.  Utilizing a floor fan and ceiling fans to circulate it around.  On the first floor we have a 10,500 BTU unit also good brand and slightly older so not as energy efficient but still highly rated when bought.  Also utilizing ceiling fans to circulate.  We use it simply to knock down the humidity and keep it bearable.  The basement as usual keeps pretty cool.  Even if our cost increase 50/month for 6 months it's an annual cost of $300.  In my mind $300.00 for comfortable living is not too much to pay.  Granted not very Mustachian of me but to each their own.

ohyonghao

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #77 on: July 18, 2014, 02:18:56 PM »
Still going strong through the middle of July.  We've had two weeks of 90+ temps, but the cool night swings down to upper 50's low 60's.  With some creative management and an extra window fan we have kept inside below 80 before the evening starts to cool off.  With our success so far I believe we'll be able to make it through to September with no trouble.

mrsggrowsveg

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #78 on: July 21, 2014, 08:38:21 AM »
We are turning it on today.  It is supposed to hit 100.  I am happy we lasted this long.

TeresaB

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #79 on: July 22, 2014, 08:31:39 AM »
We turned our air conditioning on once to make sure we knew how it worked. (We just moved.) Then we turned it off because we didn't need it. I'm not sure we'll use it at all. It's just not that hot in Chicago. (Other Chicagoans? Is this year unusually cool?)

Thegoblinchief

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #80 on: July 22, 2014, 10:48:43 AM »
Made it until yesterday. Outside temp was over 90, which means my living space would have hit 95. Still hot today, but tomorrow it goes back down into 70s.

Cromacster

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #81 on: July 22, 2014, 02:21:21 PM »
I also cracked yesterday.  90+ with high humidity.  Oddly enough I was working outside most of the day.  At least the dog got to enjoy the AC :)

Mrs. Frugalwoods

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #82 on: July 22, 2014, 02:22:27 PM »
Ok we turned it back off last weekend, so can we re-enter the competition :)? With a deduction or two for weakness of course.

ohyonghao

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #83 on: July 22, 2014, 02:27:57 PM »
We turned our air conditioning on once to make sure we knew how it worked. (We just moved.) Then we turned it off because we didn't need it. I'm not sure we'll use it at all. It's just not that hot in Chicago. (Other Chicagoans? Is this year unusually cool?)

We also just moved into this house in December, still haven't turned it on yet, but have thought about it to see how it works.  I imagine it will work like the heater did.  We've hit a cool spot for now, mid 70's and some light rain.  Might try once next week when we get back into the upper 80's.  So far though our night time cooling has done the trick and we gain only about 5* during the day.

I'd say you're still in the contest for no A/C all summer.

ohyonghao

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Re: No A/C until June
« Reply #84 on: July 24, 2014, 01:42:45 PM »
Just finishing up this week of cool weather and rain, about to run into another streak of 90F+ temps.  I started a new thread with a more appropriate title if we care to move the conversation over there.  No A/C All Summer.

 

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