I think the "AC=bad" intuition people have comes from the fact that traditional heating methods burn a ton of fuel, and they think AC is the same. It's not! AC's just shuttle heat around, you aren't converting fuel into coldness or whatever bsky.app/profile/hype...
The power comes from somewhere. Your local grid burns gas - you’re turning gas into cool. Why is this hard?
I hope everyone reading this thread understands that all of these assertions are complete nonsense.
What? No. No, not at all. Where did you get this idea?
I think the somewha-fallacy I bought into is that AC makes the heat in your home everyone else's problem, moving the heat form your "AC-privileged" home to the outside, where then people who can't afford it have to suffer more.
AC is much more expensive and energy intensive. From GoDuckGo search.
It actually doesn't matter what temperature it is outside. If it's nice outside you *still* should use AC because the AC will have to do very little work. Opening windows is never efficient
If it’s cooler outside than inside, as is almost always true in high altitude summer nights after a hot day, it’s definitely more efficient to open windows to let the cool air in, which uses 0 electricity, than to run the AC. Are you messing with us or is this a real conversation?
What? Where do you live?
this does not depend on where you live. The colder it is outside the less electricity your AC will need to cool the inside.
Well… that’s because the AC isn’t on when it’s cool out, not because running an AC uses the same amount of energy as running a fan.
?? When it's cool enough outside (and not smokey), opening windows cools things off with no electricity. Whatever the AC would require, it's >0.
There exists a temperature outside at which the AC is also 0. Anyway my point is that the AC is more efficient in cooler weather, the savings people imagine aren't there because the >0 cost is still closer to 0 than they imagine
So if it’s 77 and your AC is at 73 it’s pretty efficient, like a fan? Just curious. I live in a high altitude dry climate with cool nights; there is always a controversy. When one person sleeps in a room with east facing windows on the 2nd floor, doesn’t seem smart to let them cook in the mornings
Running a fan takes electricity. Your point about it being efficient might be right, but you are making a patently false claim to say it ever takes 0 energy to run the AC, and thus undermining yourself.
I'm puzzled by this reply. The thermostat controls the AC. If the temperature outside is cold enough the AC will never click on, it will consume 0 electricity
when it's 32F outside the AC is perfectly efficient! It cools your room with no energy!
😅🤣 exactly. It works most efficiently when turned off and disconnected from all power sources. 😁
If you don't open the windows, the outside air doesn't make it in without a fan -- the fan takes electricity. If you leave the windows open, when it gets hotter outside than your inside temp, the AC has to work harder because you keep bringing in hotter air.
Open windows though bring in fresh air which is nice
There’s also the fact that a lot of Europeans think AC will make you sick.
Wait, what? Is this like the Korean “fan death” urban legend? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
No, more like they've got confused with the idea of "sick building syndrome" and they believe that pathogens breed in ACs
Ah, that makes sense. If you have warm, stagnant water in a building’s HVAC cooling towers, you can have an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Europe is apparently ahead of the USA in guidelines for the prevention of Legionella in HVAC systems. www.goodway.com/hvac-blog/20...
Idk how they can master that but they can’t master having the light switch or outlets in the bathroom.
a 30 sec check shows that a standard Lasco fan uses 1/10 power of a small window AC unit. there are many good reasons to use AC; bs isn't one of them.
Great way to see the difference is with an electric car where you actually do have to pay the energy bill no matter what. Your mileage drops like crazy in the winter but will hold out surprisingly well in the summer compared to no heat/AC in spring/fall.
Heat pumps, which are held up as one of the most efficient heating methods, are essentially air conditioners that run in reverse.
Sorry to butt in, but this statement is not true. AC actually does "convert fuel into coldness". It does "shuttle heat around", as you say, but it takes work to do that, to push heat out of your cool house into the hot outdoors. Which is why the compressor in your AC requires electricity. 1/
Newer HVAC units and refrigerants, especially heat pumps, are massively more efficient than what we had in the past decade. Yes, it takes work, but costs have dropped dramatically. Functionally, you are correct, but the cost/benefit ratio has increased in our favor.
For sure, technology has improved a lot. Was just pushing back against the unphysical statements in the original post. Saying a system is more efficient is accurate. Saying it requires no input because it "just moves heat around" is not accurate.
An AC system is like a refrigerator - it requires energy to cool. Heating your house in the winter and cooling in the summer both require energy. People need to look at the impact of each part of their life and make their decisions. Just be accurate and informed about what you're deciding on. 2/
Am replying because this was reposted by @brendannyhan.bsky.social who teaches at Dartmouth and it seems important to call out incorrect statements so they don't make it into the classroom. 3/
There’s also the issue of environmental impact. And one of the places they “move heat around” to includes the outside, where it can raise the ambient temperature.
Yes a/c uses less energy per degree of temp change than, say, a combustion furnace does. But I think you overstate the case. It's a lot more than a fan uses. I also think the intuition is less rational. I suspect it ties to regional stereotypes.
Which in turn stem in part from when areas saw their white population boom. New England: noble puritan pilgrims chopping firewood = good. The Sunbelt: greedy SUV drivers building mcmansions in the sprawl = bad.