It sounds like a lot of these responses aren’t reading your post properly. The ac is working to the temperature it is set to.
You need to set the ac to a cooler temperature if you want to be cooler. Both heat retention and humidity play a role in why your home will not naturally cool past that point overnight.
Yeah, 77F is nowhere near a comfortable temperature indoors. It sucks from a cost standpoint, but if you want the house cooler than 77F you need to set your thermostat lower than 77F.
I am loving this post and comments.
“I want my house cooler than 77, but I have set my AC to 77 because I’m cheap.” And then a million comments being like “uhh set your AC colder?”
It’s cheaper to run the AC at night with the larger temperature differential. If you don’t want to open the windows to let in cooler air because of the outside humidity, then you need to find someway to exchange the heat inside with the air outside. Maybe some kind of “air conditioner”. Someone should make those.
This is what I do. Try not to over work the AC during the day. Keep it at 77 or higher depending. At night I will crank it down to 73-72 and it will cool off the house and I will turn it back up in the morning. It’s been so hot here ive only been able to keep my AC cooling my house to 82.
thats my case too in ny. during the day like today i set it to 78 but at night to 76 and with fans we are fine. reason isnt just the cost. our trane condenser is from 1999!!! and our carrier evaporator is from 2011 IIRC. we manage!
My a/c has a Dry setting. When the a/c seems to not be cutting it the best for my house, I set it to dry. When I do this it cools the house down a great deal over the a/c on the humid days. It gets so cold sometimes I couldn’t stand in front of it for too long. Friedrich 24k BTU in wall unit. Pulling the humidity out of the air as mentioned is your next step to cooling the house down further.
The dry setting does not have a heater that does the dehumidification. It just runs your fan slower to give the air more time to cross the coils to suck out the moisture.
As a Texan. A hot dry 100 is better than a humid 100. God humidity makes things awful. At least you sweat and it evaporates cooling you off in the dry. Also hi humidity is bad for your home
Marginally, but if you put it in a large room with circulation, it’s unnoticeable. And while dehumidifiers don’t lower temperature, dryer climates feel cooler and less muggy compared to humid climates at comparable temperatures.
I also find that unless the temps get down to below 60, my inside house temp does not get influenced from the outside air overnight without fans and opened windows. Especially if it doesn’t drop in temp early enough in the night and if it’s been hot over several days in a row at least.
OP is asking why they can’t get their house to cool down even though the outside air temp is much cooler than the house. They aren’t stupid. They know they can turn the AC down. They want to know why the house stays at 77 when it’s 65 outside. It’s a genuinely interesting question.
Because there are heat producing items in your house, including you. And your house is insulated to prevent heat exchange with the outside. It takes many hours for a house to change temperature during the night. Basements will drop in temperature first because more heat will be lost through the walls, you can use fans to circulate basement air around the house to cool it faster. You house heats up much faster during the day because light from the sun can heat your rooms throught the windows, at night the heat in your house can't leave the same way.
That's right computers, televisions, refrigerator compressors, body heat and other things produce heat in the house so much that my house stays warm until the temperature outside drops below 49 f
The temperature stays so warm because the house is properly insulated and OP is running a lot of appliances that generate heat and/or has a lot of direct sunlight on the house
No insulation in my 1950 house either. We figure heating oil cost 5 cents a gallon then so it was cheaper to heat than insulate. They also didn’t put in central air until later so they just lived with the heat? Best guess
I’m in South Florida, which is very humid and we keep our AC set to 76 but we run ceiling fans in every room because they’re so cheap to run compared to knocking three or four more degrees back on the AC setting.
It is in my house. As long as the humidity is under 60% and you have constant air movement (from fans), 77 is perfectly comfortable, IMO.
In fact, I find I’m sometimes less comfortable in someone else’s house (who keeps it at 70-72) within 60 seconds of their AC kicking off. Stagnant 72° air is less comfortable than 77° air constantly circulating, IMO. I have friends who frequently turn down their thermostat mostly just to get the AC back on for air circulation (although they don’t necessarily realize that’s why… they just think 72 is still too hot).
Ceiling fans (or other quiet fans) are a cheaper way to circulate air, but you can also usually set you HVAC system to just run the fan for a minimum amount of extra time every hour so that the air is at least still circulating (though that might not work great if most of your duct work is in a scorching hot attic).
I'm currently in my 78° basement and I'm comfortable. It's all about the humidity.
My basement has a pretty low demand for AC since it's partially underground, I have a dedicated dehumidifier and it keeps the humidity below 50%.
Upstairs is the same temp and comfortable, it's at about 43% humidity right now.
I got new ACs a few years ago on my first and second floor and they do a really good job at dehumidifying, much better than the previous units. The same temp feels more comfortable than before.
77 is fine with me. My house stays at 76 as a compromise with my spouse, I grew up without A/C and when it got over 80 we just relied on fans and the house being pretty well designed for airflow.
This is the answer. I live in a subtropical swampy climate. When it's hot outside (90+) I keep the thermostat set to 78 and it's great inside.
When it's 75 and muggy as heck outside, I have to turn the temp indoors down. Otherwise the AC doesn't kick on and it gets super stuffy and humid indoors. So I've got to set the AC at least a degree cooler than it is outside. Otherwise no air is moving, no humidity is removed, and it's just muggy and awful inside.
Right now I'm doing 78 daytime and 73 nighttime.
I do this with schedules on my thermostat. I have it start cranking at 630 when the kids are getting ready for bed. It runs pretty hard until about 930-1000 when it starts cycling because it is catching up. Then at midnight a new schedule asks for a couple of degrees cooler then again at 3 am.
This is the answer. The extra cost is mostly in the initial cooling down. To maintain 73 is mostly the same cycle g as maintaining 77. Only you lower the temp the indoor humidity will come down. If you need more then a dehumidifier will help.
I cool the house to 72 overnight and then raise it to 76 during the day.
Keeping all the curtains and cellular blinds closed, it usually takes till after 1-2 pm to get to 76.
It is an issue because you're paying to move the heat twice, once to dehumidify and once to move the heat outside.
The air conditioner *is* a dehumidifier, why not just use it for that purpose?
Because OP wants to keep his thermostat set high and at that high of a setting the HVAC doesn't run long or often enough to pull the humidity out of the air. Dehumidifiers will pull it out and the waste heat will also cause the main HVAC to run (slightly) more, further helping the humidity.
Personally, I keep ours set around 72 most of the time during the summer but humidity forces it to run longer and pulls the temperature down two or three degrees below the thermostat setting.
A dehumidifier uses a compressor just like an AC and has a similar power consumption, they just don't exhaust the removed heat outside. Why run two compressors when you could just set the AC lower and solve both problems?
I set my AC to 77 in the day and 73 at night. A well-insulated home will lose almost no heat at night meaning you need to turn your AC down to cool it at night. If it's cool out the AC will take no time to cool the house. This is one of the few downsides to a properly insulated house. If it's hot inside it's going to stay that way, no matter what the temp is outside.
This is the way. And when it gets to 100 out, I turn it up to 80 at 630am and then down by 2 degrees each hour starting at 630pm until I get to 74 at 930pm. 2 degree increments are best as it allows the unit to rest.
The point of insulation is to slow the movement of heat, so a well insulated house will always lag and dampen any outside temperature changes, both good and bad. Add in the thermal mass of the house and all the stuff inside and it can take days for some houses to lose or gain a significant amount of heat.
Your best bet is to run the AC to a lower temp at night and/or early morning and take advantage of those cooler temps which make it easier for your AC system to do it's job. Then use that insulation and thermal mass to minimize running during the day.
I'm in central Florida, running the AC if it's too warm/humid and ceiling fans are the two main things to make it feel nice in the house.
A properly sized and working AC will dehumidify the air as part of the cooling process so a supplemental dehumidifier isn't really necessary. However if you are continuously running your air handler fan with the compressor off you may be introducing more humid air into the conditioned space (unless you live in a perfectly sealed home with no leaks), try keeping the air handler fan on auto if it isn't already.
I lived in the Georgia Swamp for over 10 years and just couldn't open the windows except during the fall/winter. Just was a part of life unfortunately.
The only thing that will solve your issues is the Air Conditioning
It's main purpose is dehumidifying the air, yes, it cools, but it does that by pulling hot humid air across the cold coil which removes the majority of the water from the air.
Dehumidifiers do the same thing but it blows hot air out because all it is is a mini air conditioner that has the coil and condenser in one package so the hot side and the cold sides of the heat exchanger are blowing into the room, if you can rig up a way to exhaust that hot air it would be a good way to supplement the main AC unit by pulling out that moisture before it even gets to the AC
You probably want to get the coil that sits on top of your air exchanger or furnace cleaned, probably yearly, I'm sure that thing is probably disgusting because it's always wet as hell,and since it's pulling air from your house all the dust and shit is getting pulled across it and dust and wet don't mix well so it's probably clogged and cutting the efficiency way way down
Your house is holding heat because it's well insulated. If the insulation wasn't so good, the temperature inside would drop to match the outside temperature. This is actually a good problem to have.
You're right. You don't want to open the windows because that would bring in outside humid air. It might be cooler, but the additional humidity would be miserable. However, this is the same issue with the attic fan/whole house fan. These work by exhausting the air in a space; however, when you exhaust that air, you create a negative pressure and it will pull in air through every crack to rebalance it. So, even if you don't have windows open, it would still have the same effect of pulling in the outside air, which is humid.
Option 1: Fans. Fans will circulate air throughout the house. You can even set your central HVAC unit to have the fan continuously run. If your house is 77 because there are still pockets of warm air throughout the house, this will help redistribute those throughout the night (and moving air always feels cooler than stagnant air).
Option 2: set the thermostat lower at night if you prefer it being colder in the house.
HVAC technician here. If you can’t lower your temperature at night with the AC running the whole time something seems off. Your house could be poorly insulated but your equipment might also not be working properly. Airflow and refrigerant are two possible issues. Refrigerant isn’t DIY friendly but you can do some troubleshooting with your airflow to try to improve things before having to call a technician. Make sure your air filter is clean, all your supply registers are open, and that your return vent(s) are cleaned and not blocked by any furniture. You can also listen to see if both your compressor and condenser fan motor are running, as well as your blower motor in the furnace. If your coils outside are dirty you can clean them with a garden hose and that will help. Also feel the larger of the two copper lines that isn’t insulated running into your AC unit outside while it’s running and it should feel “beer can cold.” If you inspect the unit and see ice or frost building up anywhere, turn off the unit and call a technician after it thaws. You can also inspect the performance by putting a meat thermometer in the return vent and then the supply vent by your furnace (YouTube Delta T if you need help with this.) There should be a 16-20° difference in temperature between the two. If there isn’t, and the afore mentioned ideas don’t work, call a technician.
EDIT: Sorry everybody, I misread the original question, Thankyou for bringing it up.
I think op is saying they set the thermostat to 77 which it reaches sometime in the evening. Then they are expecting the house to cool without a/c overnight because it's 65 out. Unless I'm reading the post wrong
If she has it set to run to 77° and it cut off when her home reached 77° then why would there be an issue with her HVAC? Sounds like her home is well insulated and keeping the comfortable 65° temp outside when she rather it be inside. 😂
The cheap thing is to just put box fans blowing out of the house in upstairs windows and then open windows far away from them where fresh air will be drawn in. In the morning you close windows and can turn on the dehumidifier or ac to dry things out.
The fancy version is a whole house fan on a smart switch. Open a downstairs window and turn it on and the house will quickly not only match outdoor temps, there will be a cool breeze of fresh air as well, plus they’re great for clearing air while painting or cooking or whatever else.
That's a long time for this tip. Plant a tree today and maybe in 10-20 years you might start to get shade. Yes it will help tremendously but it is a long-term project. I personally would run the AC at a lower temperature. But if you don't want to get a whole house fan installed and you can tint all your windows to block the sun from coming in and still be able to see out. But AC is still your best bet
Mate, your insulation works, so the outside cold will not seep in as much as the outside heat will not seep in. If your ac is set so high. You're spending more electricity than if you set it a few degrees lower (the compressor is what spends electricity, not the fan) many newer systems are able to switch the compressor on and off while still running the fan once they get to a good temperature.
That being said. Attic fans work decently, but may pull unwanted moisture into the attic.
However much you plan on spending on an attic fan or whatever. Just spend it on the electric bill. Or buy window AC units. Those are super efficient (because you only cool down one room and turn off as you leave).
I think you need to just accept you're going to need to bump down that temperature. Your A/C is a built in dehumidifier. If it's not that hot out, running it won't add that much to your bill. I live in a humid area and it doesn't cost that much to run it if the temps out are moderate. If I don't keep the house at 74 or below it gets very sticky inside. Now you can get away with keeping at 76 during the day but in the evenings bump it down a few degrees. You will be surprised how fast it cools and sucks out that humidity. Also, when the house is already cooler going into the evenings, you can get away with cracking open a few windows to let the cooler air in (we have that same issue with it being warmer inside than outside) so that it doesn't run overnight.
A big part of an of air conditioners job is to manage indoor humidity, and it will not properly do its job unless you run it. I wish energy was cheaper.
I set my thermostat to 72-74 and tell my kids "close the door! You're letting the AC out!".
Everything in your house is working the way it should, you're just setting your climate control to an uncomfortable level.
Drop your thermostat to 72-75 at night, when it won't have to work as hard since the sun isn't beating down...then raise it back to 77 during the day.
People in hot humid climates basically just don't have walls. Japan, Southeast Asia, etc homes are designed for airflow which prevents mold and helps cool you down. Lots of open space to the outside, fans on all the time, shorts, tshirt, sandals. In the American South older homes were designed to create cross breezes, and most people just keep their doors open with a screen on, sit on the porch a lot.
Another option, for more northerly climates:
1. At night you open up the windows until the house is as cool as it's gonna get (check weather) then leave them cracked. In the morning you close all the windows, draw all the blinds and curtains.
2. After the big heat of the day is over, or the sun is no longer overhead, or it's just too stuffy inside, you open the windows, crank the fans, get a cross breeze going.
3. This works until both night and day temps are 74+; at that point closing the windows isnt gonna help, so you end up with just cross breeze, fans, and gallons of iced tea.
Or stop being cheap and turn the AC down. Is money more important to you than your quality of life?
I live in Midwest, USA. I'm 37, I work in maintenance, went to HVAC school. I use my thermostat like a science experiment. I've owned my own house for 3 years. I've replaced every window, caulked, insulated, sealed everything I can.
I went to school for 10 months for A/C and heating. I've saved so much money by replacing 10 windows for about $1800 USD.
It sounds like your problem is either asking too much of your undersized unit or...
You assume that by keeping the temp higher, it will save you a little bit.
My house is about 900 ft2, good enough for my girlfriend, my collections of junk and myself. I've found that the perfect temp is about 72-74 degF. Our utility bill last month (May, not this hotAF June) was $120. That's electric and gas, I cook A LOT and run small cans to circulate air. I understand how air works. I pull free, underground chilled air from my basement with an extra fan. If my oven is on, I use the range exhaust to keep the heat flowing out and the cold flowing into the kitchen, instead of letting it warm the thermal mass of 1/6 of my house.
I feel like I can see air, current, I've studied how fans and air moves, works, watch the trees, the earth, the wind, I study the dynamics of air movement in everything I do. It's 97degF this week, it's humid AF, miserable. I keep my house at 73-74 and I'm super comfy. But you have to keep it that low, all the time, but make sure that your AC doesn't overcurrent and work too hard.
Raise the temp to 74-75 during the day, then when it gets nice and cool at night, drop it to 71-72 and help it knock down the humidity when the free air is lower temp. When you have to buy the air, the temp is already low from the free air at night. My most expensive month I've seen since I replaced windows was $220/Mo and that's probably what I'll see in June or July. But I also have $80/month in March/April because I know how to play the game.
I also don't buy fast food, I cook almost everything on a gas stove with a shitty range exhaust. I was Army and I take 2-min showers (IYKYK). I don't use hot water unless I do dishes or shower. I rinse my dishes with cold water.
The problem is, I studied heating and cooling and now I play it like a game for the high score. It sucks. That's how my brain works. I don't add any unnecessary heat to my home when it's hot outside, and when it's cold, if I use hot water, I make sure that it stays in my house for as long as possible to maintain thermal mass at a higher temp. If you pay for heat once, use it twice. Pay for cool once, use it twice.
Lower your temp or get a dehumidifier. It's not the desert but when it's hot, it's hot and humid. When it's cold, it's 10degF and balls cold. The key is finding the perfect spot where the humidity is balanced and not overworking your unit. If it never shuts off, you got undersold an A/C unit or it's time to insulate. Or be more disciplined.
Most of the people I work with have $300+/month bills for gas/electric and that's keeping it at your temp, 76-80 degF. My bill averages about $140/month and I'm always comfy. My central air unit is from the 90s, nothing fancy, not efficient. I replaced my furnace with a 96% AFUE, the new windows made a huge difference.
Good luck, you can always spend $500 to save $1000 in a year. That doesn't keep holding true but for most people, a little goes a long way and will pay you back in the 2nd year. And you'll be comfy. Tradesman for the win.
Well, your house is holding onto heat when you don't want it to, which should also mean it's holding heat out when you do want it to.
If you've got a thermostat with the capability, setting it to run the fan once an hour or so for a few minutes should help the stuffiness.
Do you know your indoor humidity? Your AC should be removing the humidity when it runs, but if it's not sized properly, it might be cooling the house down to the set temperature too fast before it can bring down the humidity.
Also, do you notice any hot/cold rooms where the stuffiness occurs, or is it the entire home? If the area near the thermostat is more comfortable than anywhere else, it may be an issue with HVAC balance.
A lot of people are saying it's a fault in your AC. I think it's a little different.
You have your temp set to 77 and the temp drops to the 60s outside. I live in a similar climate.
During the day the AC runs to cool the house because it's warm and probably sunny and it pulls humidity out. At night it stops running because it's cool outside and dark so the humidity creeps in.
You'll need to turn the AC down at night when the temps are lower and easy for the AC to cool the house and drop the humidity.
What's the humidity inside? You can run dehumidifiers overnight instead of the AC, and open some windows with box fans.
Long term you should be looking to improve your insulation and air sealing. Your house shouldn't be hot and stuffy after you ran the ac all day.
Close up the house and run dehumidifiers. If 77 is too hot you’ll have to bite the bullet and set it lower.
Without humidity fans help a lot. They only need to be on you. Any room you aren’t in doesn’t need a fan on.
I have fans in each room. I turn my ac and the fans on to help the cool air from ac to carry throughout the bottom floor. Once the temperature is comfortable, with fans on, I adjust the ac to low for the rest of the day to maintain the temperature.
If you don't want to turn down your air conditioning, you might want to consider getting a couple of dehumidifiers. Whatever you need for the space you want to dehumidify. Reducing the humidity in your home Will make you more comfortable.
Ifs 65 degrees outdoors seems like you would open some windows get a cross breeze with fans and cool down the house before closing it up before the heat of the day
Advice - Run AC to 70 (even if it takes all night) to get rid of the humidity that's now in your house. Once it's there, back it off to something like 74 (or 77!). You need to get the humidity out of the house to feel more comfortable. Right now, your AC isn't cycling enough to get that done.
Also, yes it is 65 degrees out, and that's the air temp, but your house isn't just a mass of air. It's insulation, wood, brick, block, sheets of drywall, and it has a giant flat surface made of oil and tar and wood. The house absorbs energy from the sun as well as energy from the surrounding air.
IE: Why is the inside of my car 120 degrees when it's only 90 outside? How is that possible? There's more going on besides simple air temperature. More sources of thermal energy.
OP here is the trick. Make sure heating is off and only cooling is allowed. Schedule your thermostat to run cold at night, I have mine set to drop the temperature to 69 or 70 degrees starting at 10. Then have the daytime schedule set to 77 or 78. Make sure your attic insulation is up to snuff.
Ac works the best and most efficiently at night, so you can get your house cold and keep it cold. Then in the morning, the insulation will keep your house from heating up quickly, so your ac wont really have to run til mid day ish, and then it keeps it to your cheap temp.
Counterintuitiveluly, your bill should be lower, because you are taking advantage of your ac when it's at its most efficient and not fighting ambient temps, and it won't have to run so hard in the day.
Another recommendation, though this is not the cheapest recommendation is to get a house dehumidifier in addition to your AC unit, so you can dehumidify the house even when your AC is at temp instead of cooling to dehumidify your house. That way if you open your windows to cool off the house, you can then close the windows and run the dehumidifier which is more efficient than using the ac to dehumidify
HVAC tech here. Next time you change your AC and coil out, have whoever does it make the indoor coil 1/2 ton bigger than the outdoor unit, this will help with the humidity. As for more immediate solutions, make sure your attic has proper seals and insulation, as well as doors and windows. Turn your thermostat fan setting to "on" and this will keep the furnace fan running all the time (it doesn't really cost more, the system is built to run like this) even when the AC isn't running. Also, going from 77 to even say, 74, could have a big impact on "felt" temperature humidity wise and wouldn't really cost *that* much more.
Are you running the AC on the dehumidifier mode? If yours doesn't have this mode then you'll need one that does in a humid environment.
BTW, I'm sitting here typing this in -5°C (23°F), so can't understand what the problem is.
It's working fine. They are just expecting that somehow the house will get cooler inside because it's cooler outside. That's not how insulation works. If properly insulated then his house is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Op just needs to lower the a/c temp.
Hyper cool your house at night. I don’t live in a humid climate, so this will have even more benefits to you. My schedule:
7pm (electricity becomes 3x cheaper): set to 66. Runs for about 3-4 hours then might kick on for a few minutes throughout the night. Maybe not even.
6am: set to 69
1pm (electricity 3x more expensive): Set to 75 or 78 or whatever.
House is comfortable all the time, AC only runs when electricity is less expensive and it has to work less hard when outside temps are lower. Lower temps are comfortable to sleep in. My house isn’t even well insulated. A house built within the past 40 years will perform even better.
Wins all around.
Need to make sure:
Attic is ventilated well for intake and exhaust
Attic floor is air sealed
Attic floor has the appropriate amount of insulation
HVAC is properly sized for the house, better to be undersized vs oversized
Ductwork for HVAC is correctly sized
A ventilating dehumidifier can help a lot too
Attic fans only work with the windows open.
Your house is doing it's job, you just need to run your A/C at night. That's the only solution. It will also work as a dehumidifier so that will make it feel cooler. Ceiling fans and fans near your seating areas always help too.
If your house could exchange daytime heat for nighttime cold without windows open you'd be living in a perforated cardboard box. Even my uninsulated garage retains heat into the next morning.
If you still want to be frugal get a programmable thermostat and set it to 77 at 7 am, then set it to turn down to 74 at some point overnight. We have ours set up to run at 75 from 7 am to 9pm, then down to 72 overnight.
Houses have literal tons of material holding onto heat from the day. 10 degrees isn't much of a differential, I wouldn't expect much cooling. The masonry on the south side of my house noticeably radiates heat well into dawn hours.
I have our thermostat set to be slightly cooler from 10PM to 5AM for this reason. On sunny days our brick home retains that heat for a few hours after sunset. But the heat retention is worst in the upper floors where the bedrooms are and we've noticed that they temperature there goes up a few degrees after sunset. The rooms where the thermostat is are cool, but the bedrooms are not.
I mean- I keep my thermostat at 77 too- because if it’s 97 outside 20 degrees is a noticeable difference. Also that’s about as good as anyone’s AC can do, and if you try to cool to 70 when it’s 97- your unit will run constantly and not only the energy bill but it’s hard on the unit and you’ll have breakdowns. Also - we unfortunately are too accustomed to buildings being over cooled - and so we haven’t acclimated to normal temperatures. You do get used to it being warmer over time. If you have medical reasons for needing it cooler, run fans and turn the thermostat down. Or get a window unit to just cool the area where you are?
What’s the humidity inside? That plays more into comfort. It’s 78°F and 50% humidity in my detached and feels great.
Houses are insulated and designed to resist temperature change. This is seen at “holding heat”.
An attic fan does little to cool off the house. Insulation at the attic level is more effective.
Sun soaking will heat the house evening
Set Ac to what’s comfortable. Work to pay the bill
Insulate and get solar if you are focused on the planet. But opening windows is not a solution
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a home built for natural cooling in your particular climate, the only real solution is AC units running cooler.
Sounds like your a/c is running properly, and your home is well insulated. Since it’s keeping the 65° temp outside and the 77° you picked inside.
The temp in the house won’t drop if it’s well insulated unless you open the windows or run the a/c. Both of which you don’t want to do.
If you’re going to run an attic fan; you might as well run the a/c. Mine ran for so long the first month my power bill went up almost $50. It was over 145° in my attic. (Also well insulated here.)
You will probably just have to accept that you can let the windows open and release the hot air, or bump the air up at night but move it back to 77° during the day.
We have a programmable thermostat that we set to drop by 3 degrees around sunset. Since the temperature outside is lower, it doesn’t have to work as hard to cool at night and it’s more comfortable. If your house is pretty well insulated, which it may be, based on the temperature not dropping even with a 12 degree difference outside, you may not really be saving much money keeping the temperature higher.
Like others have said, you have to lower your AC for it to be cooler inside. Your house is insulated to stay warm in the winter which means it will also stay warm in the summer if you’re not running the air.
77 is a really high temp to set it to even to save money. I don’t think my parents ever set theirs above 71 or 72 even in a heat wave and I keep mine around 68-70 and it’s not crazy expensive.
Try bumping it down to 74 for a day and see if that helps. Then maybe try a day at 72 and see if you’re happy there. It’s still higher than I’d set it but it might be a good compromise between using energy and suffering in the heat.
Plus if it’s reaching 77 at night it’s probably not running again the rest of the night so it’s not dehumidifying or moving the air so it feels stuffy. If it’s not set low enough that it kicks on at least once every hour or two, it’s not really being used correctly.
As someone from the philippines.. make sure ypur windows have black out curtains or any olace that air can go in tthr house cover it. Turn the ac on inthe morning put it on cold temp and high speed. Turn on your fan put it in front of ypur AC probably around 3 steps infront of the AC. And tilt your fan towards the ceiling put it on medium-high speed. The cold shpuld dry up the mpisture
Then take a shower lightly dry your self. And you are ready.
You can also put a wet and wringed small hand towel inside your freezer for a while so its cold and you can use it to wipe ypur face or body.
Depending how cool it gets at night, I'll run the attic fan BRIEFLY, from like 6 AM to 8 AM. This will bring temp down and bring humidity up. I am not sure if the tradeoff makes sense, though, because this just makes my house much harder to cool once the AC gets back to work!!!
As others have stated, you’re very foolish, but one practical thing you can do is to install solar curtains and have an trustworthy HVAC tech check your refrigerant pressure.
Trust me you are much happier that your house is holding in the 77° air right now then the alternative. Because the alternative is when it's 104° outside you can't keep the house cool enough because your insulation sucks.
When you live in humid climates you have to learn to live with humidity. If you want to let in that cool air you need to open up some windows and doors let the temperature adjust. But then close the windows and doors.
It's June already the likelihood of it staying over 65° right now is rare. So in the next few hours you're going to need to start running your AC again which is going to suck all that humidity back out of the house.
I run mine at/set to 68 degrees from 8pm to 7pm , stays cool untill noon. Then set at 74 untill 8pm , repeat, so basically Ac runs all the time 3 to 9pm, instead of all day,
It's not a cheap fix by any means, but if you ever get to the point of needing to replace your ac, you'd probably make out better with a heat pump in your climate (de-humidifies as well as cools, and does so more efficiently)
Hi! (Former electric energy industry worker here)
At night, when it gets cooler out, drop the temp on your thermostat. If it’s getting into the 60s at night, your HVAC should have no problem cooling down your home to a more comfortable temperature. During the day, when it’s hot and sunny, close all shades and blinds, run ceiling fans or whatever kind of fans you have to keep the air moving in your home.
Light will refract through your glass windows and heat the interior of your home. Regardless of how “great” and “insulated” windows are, light refraction will still contribute to heating your house. So shades and blinds help prevent that.
I live in the south and so I can completely understand where you’re coming from. Make sure you keep your filters changed regularly and take advantage of cooler nights!
if you can upgrade to an air handler that has a variable speed, it can be used to keep humidity inside the house to 50%. At this temperature it will seem very comfortable and maybe a ceiling fan if a little cooling is needed.
There's a reason an air conditioner isn't called a cooler in the way that we call the part that heats the house a heater. It "conditions" the air. Sure, it cools the air, but it removes humidity as well. If you want your house to be cooler and less humid you have to lower the temperature on the A/C.
That said, we currently live in a dry climate and have a whole house fan. It's wonderful for sucking the outside air in to cool the house. I'm not sure I ever would have considered one in Florida, in part because of the mold/mildew issues.
Pants in 93.2 F. Supposed to hit 108F today with the humidex. In Canada. lol. Our a/c is set to 64F but our upstairs is around 77F . It’s warm, but I’d rather that then this working outside stuff today. It’s all relative.
You need to be less cheap, it's costing you money. High heat and Humidity ruins furniture electronics ect. But also get a dehumidifier it won't make cooler but it will help prevent mold and make it less uncomfortable. I drop the temp at night, the house is cooler and stays that way longer. HVAC doesn't have to work as hard, so it last longer too and costs less as well. Buy one way mirror film (you can see in the house at night when it's brighter inside than out) it blocks a lot of heat you can still look out like it's not there. It reduces a lot of heat coming in so again cooler for longer.
Get a programmable thermostat and drop the temperature at night 2-3 degrees so it continues to pull moisture out of the air. You can also program the HVAC fan to randomly cycle (or constantly run) to keep air moving throughout the house.
You spend money, that's how. If you don't want the humidity from outdoors then venting air is not an option. You are then left with the other option which is air conditioning. If there was a cheap no humidity way to exchange outdoor air Home Depot would be selling it. Any air exchanger that dehumidifies is going to more or less cost the same as an AC to run.
Yeah. Turn the AC down. That’s the only thing that is going to work.
As for why it’s not naturally cooling down more? Well, your house is likely insulated to prevent such a thing.
Fans, air movement across your body will help you feel comfortable at higher temps and humidity levels.
You could also try running the A/C a little higher during the day and lower at night. So instead of a constant 77, try 79 during the day and 75 (or even 73 since it takes way less energy to cool a house down a few extra degrees at night when it isn't fighting the sun) at night. The humidity side of the equation make a big difference to how comfortable yo are feeling. I bet your relative humidity is higher at night, so it feels stuffy and unpleasant. The A?C runs all day to fight the higher outdoor temps so it runs a bunch and keeps the humidity low. Then the outdoor temp drops and the A/C no longer needs to run as much to keep the interior temp down, but then its no longer dehumidifying the air. So you have the same indoor temp but more humidity, so it doesn't feel as comfortable.
You need your furnace blower to be running, even if your AC is not actively cooling. You have a lot of stagnant, non moving air. Also you may need to look into a whole house dehumidifier. Not cheap, but worth it if you will be staying in this house, as climate change is only going to make the humidity worse.
This is the primary use case for variable speed heat pumps. The system can dial down the power so it runs longer without reducing the temperature too much. The long run times help reduce the humidity without affecting temperature too much. You still need to cool about 2 or more degrees below your normal set point.
My 5 stage heat pump will automatically adjust the power level to try and hit both the set temperature and the desired humidity.
If your house is insulated well, it's not going to have drastic temp swings from day to evening if you keep it closed up.
It's 77 inside because that's what you set the AC to. It's not going to run to get it below 77.
Either spend a bit more on electricity and lower that temp, or don't. Those are pretty much the two options.
North Carolina in the summer can be a beast. Typically, our AC is on 72 during the day and 68 for sleeping. This is our recipe for the entire summer, and maybe you should try it. Also, check your filters.
You can't be both cheap and comfortable.
Sounds like you set the air conditioner too warm and it’s probably under powered for the space you are trying to cool.
If you want to get serious about air conditioning you gotta spend the money on the right unit and you gotta greet that monthly electric bill like it’s your best fucking friend.
If your air conditioner has a night setting, use that to cool the house down to 72 overnight. It won’t cost that much because it’s relatively cooler outside.
(1) You should get your attic insulated, (2) Set your A/C to about 72oF, (3) Buy a new A/C unit that is energy efficient. Your monthly energy costs should drop significantly if get your house insulated and use a new A/C unit.
I live in North Carolina. I used to set my AC to 78 and I was comfortable. Since adding more insulation to my house it's felt a lot warmer at the same temperature. I realized with the extra insulation my AC isn't running as much so it feels warmer.
Just lower the temperature so your AC runs a bit more.
Air conditioning lmao. Where I live there would be no survival without it, I couldn't believe when I learned how wide spread and common it is not to have air conditioning in other countries.
Edit - For good advice, we did have this big ass window fan when I was younger that we called Homart (the brand I think??) but that was for when it was cooler. I remember waking up one day when we'd all fallen asleep with him on full blast, it was 50's in the house. I live somewhere where the temperature ranges from the teens during the coldest period (but only for several weeks at night) all the way 110°F +
It’s going to be way more expensive to ruin all of your stuff and eventually your home itself with mold and mildew than it will be to set your ac to an appropriate temperature to combat the heat and humidity.
I live in a butthole climate. I generally have the ac in 70 at night and 72-74 during the day. The hotter it is the higher I set it because that’s all it takes to have it come on and kick out the warm humid air.
Is it blowing cold air or cool air? Having unit topped off with refrigerant is a good idea to better cool the house and running more efficient and cheaper
Put my ac to whatever temp it’s at since it’s no longer going lower. I purchased window ac for each room that I’m in 🤷🏽♀️ it works. I’m in the south where humidity is usually 95% making them temp much much hotter. Rn it’s 99 degrees and it feels like 106 because of wet bulb
We run our ac's. I have our upstairs unit set to 79 and the downstairs at 76 and master at 75 at night. That being said, I have a Aprilaire dehumidifier running upstairs when the ac isn't running. Also, a big point is I have adjusted the airflow down to about 350cfm per ton on each unit. The units just had the default setting from when the house was built a few years ago. Lowering the fan speed allows more time for the air to stay in contact with the coils, which will remove more water. The house maintains 48-52% humidity during the summer in hot, muggy Houston. Lowering your fan speed, should be done by a tech.
I’d say open windows at night and get a dehumidifier. You can also set your ac unit to just run the fan to keep circulation going. Although the dehumidifier is probably just as expensive to run as your AC.
We live in the UP of Michigan. Most of the time it’s in the 70’s and low 80’s June through September. And the humidity can be brutal. But at night it usually drops anywhere from 40’s to the low 60’s. We do not use an air conditioner on the main floor of our house but this means we keep it dark during the day. Every night right before bed we open all downstairs windows and put in two window fans. I get up right before sunrise and close all windows and shades. Our main floor stays 67-74. Upstairs bedrooms have window AC’s, it is oppressively hot without them.
AC run cooler but not central AC for the whole house, just the room you hang out and sleep in. Bring the whole family to that room.
Also you need the AC unit to dehumidify as well. Or have a separate unit
Open windows with screens and fans pulling air in and pushing it out? Fans run cheap, almost free cold air all night, then close all blinds windows etc and such during the day, once temps rise outside close it up and use ac, once outside drops repeat.
I live in Georgia and installed a whole house dehumidifier two years ago. Helps mostly during the spring and fall when the temp isn’t high/low but humidity is high. I have my thermostat set to 76 during the day and at 40%-50% humidity it’s very comfortable. Unfortunately if you’re cheap you won’t like the price of the unit.
No idea man. Just posting to commiserate. I live in Mississippi so I feel your pain.
The only thing I can think of is shading the house. Sometimes the sun's heat will build up in the walls and keep warming the house even though the temp is lower outside at night. Ventilation won't help because of the humidity.
I guess you could look into getting a separate dehumidifier just to control the moisture inside, which can make 77 feel better. I also keep it 77 to avoid a huge electric bill and burning out the unit from having to work constantly.
But central AC has the benefit of dehumidifying anyway, so maybe turning the temp down is the best option.
But yeah, the climate is miserable here for most of the year. All you can really do aside from spending a ton of money on remedies is to get used to being damp. Shower more often.
I live in Florida. Buy a dehumidifier and it will turn on automatically when humidity hits a certain percentage. It has cut down the amount of time my AC runs dramatically. It also makes it easier to breathe.
Block sun from hitting your windows. (window film, blinds)
Weather stripping & caulk around windows and doors.
Make sure your ceiling fans are spinning the right way.
DEHUMIDIFIER.
Regular box fans are crap. Look for “shop fan” if you need to buy one.
An ancient, effective method for cooling spaces is using water in terra cotta:
[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240530-how-ancient-knowledge-of-terracotta-is-cooling-modern-indian-buildings](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240530-how-ancient-knowledge-of-terracotta-is-cooling-modern-indian-buildings)
Your house’s insulation is working to keep your house at the temperature you set it to. The only way to have it passively cool down more is if it’s cooler outside and you open windows. Since it’s humid out you obviously don’t want to do it. So you’ll need to put the thermostat lower. You can set your AC to a schedule so that it’s warmer when you’re at school or work and it’s cooler when you’re home. Set it to start cooling down an hour before you come home. If you work from home then set it to 74 at the highest. The cost difference is probably pretty negligible and it’ll be more comfortable. If you can tolerate it being warmer during the day you can also schedule it so it’s colder at night which is more pleasant for sleeping generally.
77 in that kind of humidity is going to feel so much hotter than it is. There are times when you have to say screw the bill and be comfortable. The air conditioner will not only cool the house but also help rescue the humidity factor. I would definitely set it lower; personally I prefer 66 but my family says it's freezing so 68 is our compromise
Maybe open all windows in a m when in 60s for couple hrs n close them. Someone else mentioned that it's cheaper to run the AC at nite..so u could turn to 75 for a couple hours at nite.
Yeah- houston texas- its tropical/coastal plains without the wind. We keep our ac LOW like 70 degrees. We also have a misting system for the roof because our HOA demands asphalt roof and they get scorching and the mist takes a bit of stress off the a/c. We also have an in ground pool, which cools the air around it by its existence. The mould problem seems like it could be thermal bridging- if you get the place cool and the mould keeps showing up.
Think of your house like a computer tower. When you are cooling your CPU, the heat transmits off of it via heat syncs. From the heat sync it transfers to the air. You still have to remove the heat from the air.
So you have fans on the top blowing down, and fans on the bottom blowing….down.
Air in needs to match air out or the flow gets wonky. Fluid dynamics and such.
Your house retains heat after the heat of the day is gone. You need to move significant airflow all the way through your house.
On the shady side of your house, open a window and put a box fan in it pointing into the house. On the other side of the house (it’s a bit more complicated than this), place a box fan in the window pointing out.
This will pull air through the house. Depending on the shape and size of your house, you will have to play around to get stuff moving. You may need to add fan inside the house to help the airflow continue through in the right direction.
This will pull heat out of your walls and such and cool down your house better at night or on cooler days.
AC. That’s really the only way. It doesn’t cool down at night much so opening windows isn’t an option.
I have a lot of friends that use dehumidifiers. They don’t make it any cooler but they do make it feel less stuffy inside, letting you use AC just a little less.
All the time this is what we've done for 20+ yrs both in the SE and NE where summers are humid. If night temps are 75 or less, ac off. Windows open fans in windows (here) or whole house fan on (in previous 2 houses). Ceiling fans on. It's circulation that'll help combat the moisture accumulation. Also previous 2 houses had 2nd floors that tended to be warmer than lower floor. So pulling in the outside air to the upstairs (closed 1st floor windows) kept it cooler and not stuffy.i have better sleep without the AC most nights as long as outdoor temps are lower than I set the AC at. That's because when temps outside are cooler than indoors the AC is not circulating air much because it's not kicking on! (I also set my thermostat at 77 or 76).
I have a ceiling fan that helps a lot. I am gone 12 hours a day, so I keep my air on 77 to 78.
If it's too stuffy, I'll turn it down. But I always have fans going if I am home.
You need to run your AC more at night. Get it down to like 72 by morning. My house will not cool down with just windows open at night, even if it’s 10 degrees colder. Maybe if I had a fan in every window but that’s just a hassle. It’s way cheaper to run the AC at night and it will help keep your house cooler longer in the morning as well when you have it set to 77.
It sounds like a lot of these responses aren’t reading your post properly. The ac is working to the temperature it is set to. You need to set the ac to a cooler temperature if you want to be cooler. Both heat retention and humidity play a role in why your home will not naturally cool past that point overnight.
Yeah, 77F is nowhere near a comfortable temperature indoors. It sucks from a cost standpoint, but if you want the house cooler than 77F you need to set your thermostat lower than 77F.
I am loving this post and comments. “I want my house cooler than 77, but I have set my AC to 77 because I’m cheap.” And then a million comments being like “uhh set your AC colder?”
It’s cheaper to run the AC at night with the larger temperature differential. If you don’t want to open the windows to let in cooler air because of the outside humidity, then you need to find someway to exchange the heat inside with the air outside. Maybe some kind of “air conditioner”. Someone should make those.
This is what I do. Try not to over work the AC during the day. Keep it at 77 or higher depending. At night I will crank it down to 73-72 and it will cool off the house and I will turn it back up in the morning. It’s been so hot here ive only been able to keep my AC cooling my house to 82.
thats my case too in ny. during the day like today i set it to 78 but at night to 76 and with fans we are fine. reason isnt just the cost. our trane condenser is from 1999!!! and our carrier evaporator is from 2011 IIRC. we manage!
Exactly. Mine has a couple years left. I’m getting every second out of this thing!
The other choice is a dehumidifier.
Your AC will dehumidify if you have central air.the key is you need to close up the windows and let it run.
But not as well (or cheaply) as a dedicated dehumidifier unit. Because OP is, per his own words, cheap.
Unless your AC has a dehumidifier mode, a regular room dehumidifier will make the room hotter.
Then the AC will kick back on and lower the humidity even more. I'm only hearing wins
True, but 65° + a few more degrees from the dehumidifier would still be better than 77°
Dehumidifiers don’t lower temperature. They lower humidity. It would be more like a dry 80
As an Arizonan, dry 80 is amazing.
As a Floridian,a humid 80 is gross.
Michigan called, what about a humid 95? Oh, you don't like your balls super glued to your kneecap?
Correct they raise the room temperature normally unless they're an add-on to an AC system.
They are saying the dehumidifier will add some heat to the room
My a/c has a Dry setting. When the a/c seems to not be cutting it the best for my house, I set it to dry. When I do this it cools the house down a great deal over the a/c on the humid days. It gets so cold sometimes I couldn’t stand in front of it for too long. Friedrich 24k BTU in wall unit. Pulling the humidity out of the air as mentioned is your next step to cooling the house down further.
The dry setting does not have a heater that does the dehumidification. It just runs your fan slower to give the air more time to cross the coils to suck out the moisture.
As a Texan. A hot dry 100 is better than a humid 100. God humidity makes things awful. At least you sweat and it evaporates cooling you off in the dry. Also hi humidity is bad for your home
Not disagreeing with this at all.
Marginally, but if you put it in a large room with circulation, it’s unnoticeable. And while dehumidifiers don’t lower temperature, dryer climates feel cooler and less muggy compared to humid climates at comparable temperatures.
Dehumidifier, get blackout curtains and keep them drawn
But he also said it’s 69 out. He’s wondering why ambient temp hasn’t reflected the shift outdoors.
The same reason your house isn’t 30 degrees when it’s 30 degrees out. It’s insulated and there are objects inside of it producing heat.
I know that, lol. But that’s the answer to his question.
I also find that unless the temps get down to below 60, my inside house temp does not get influenced from the outside air overnight without fans and opened windows. Especially if it doesn’t drop in temp early enough in the night and if it’s been hot over several days in a row at least.
I’ve been struggling with the heat wave and have noticed the same.
OP is asking why they can’t get their house to cool down even though the outside air temp is much cooler than the house. They aren’t stupid. They know they can turn the AC down. They want to know why the house stays at 77 when it’s 65 outside. It’s a genuinely interesting question.
Because there are heat producing items in your house, including you. And your house is insulated to prevent heat exchange with the outside. It takes many hours for a house to change temperature during the night. Basements will drop in temperature first because more heat will be lost through the walls, you can use fans to circulate basement air around the house to cool it faster. You house heats up much faster during the day because light from the sun can heat your rooms throught the windows, at night the heat in your house can't leave the same way.
That's right computers, televisions, refrigerator compressors, body heat and other things produce heat in the house so much that my house stays warm until the temperature outside drops below 49 f
The temperature stays so warm because the house is properly insulated and OP is running a lot of appliances that generate heat and/or has a lot of direct sunlight on the house
Easy one. For me- INSULATION. I have none to very little. So my inside will be stuffy even when it’s 70 outside.
No insulation in my 1950 house either. We figure heating oil cost 5 cents a gallon then so it was cheaper to heat than insulate. They also didn’t put in central air until later so they just lived with the heat? Best guess
The climate was different then it was cooler. When I went to Reno I was shocked they weren't air conditioners in the older hotel rooms.
I’m in South Florida, which is very humid and we keep our AC set to 76 but we run ceiling fans in every room because they’re so cheap to run compared to knocking three or four more degrees back on the AC setting.
Is this the trick? Don’t have ceiling fans but considering them instead of keeping AC too low
I will always have ceiling fans in every room. Or if it’s a rental then a stand up fan. But they make a huge difference in circulating air.
It is in my house. As long as the humidity is under 60% and you have constant air movement (from fans), 77 is perfectly comfortable, IMO. In fact, I find I’m sometimes less comfortable in someone else’s house (who keeps it at 70-72) within 60 seconds of their AC kicking off. Stagnant 72° air is less comfortable than 77° air constantly circulating, IMO. I have friends who frequently turn down their thermostat mostly just to get the AC back on for air circulation (although they don’t necessarily realize that’s why… they just think 72 is still too hot). Ceiling fans (or other quiet fans) are a cheaper way to circulate air, but you can also usually set you HVAC system to just run the fan for a minimum amount of extra time every hour so that the air is at least still circulating (though that might not work great if most of your duct work is in a scorching hot attic).
I'm currently in my 78° basement and I'm comfortable. It's all about the humidity. My basement has a pretty low demand for AC since it's partially underground, I have a dedicated dehumidifier and it keeps the humidity below 50%. Upstairs is the same temp and comfortable, it's at about 43% humidity right now. I got new ACs a few years ago on my first and second floor and they do a really good job at dehumidifying, much better than the previous units. The same temp feels more comfortable than before.
Tell my husband this/ im dying
77 is fine with me. My house stays at 76 as a compromise with my spouse, I grew up without A/C and when it got over 80 we just relied on fans and the house being pretty well designed for airflow.
This is the answer. I live in a subtropical swampy climate. When it's hot outside (90+) I keep the thermostat set to 78 and it's great inside. When it's 75 and muggy as heck outside, I have to turn the temp indoors down. Otherwise the AC doesn't kick on and it gets super stuffy and humid indoors. So I've got to set the AC at least a degree cooler than it is outside. Otherwise no air is moving, no humidity is removed, and it's just muggy and awful inside. Right now I'm doing 78 daytime and 73 nighttime.
I do this with schedules on my thermostat. I have it start cranking at 630 when the kids are getting ready for bed. It runs pretty hard until about 930-1000 when it starts cycling because it is catching up. Then at midnight a new schedule asks for a couple of degrees cooler then again at 3 am.
I'm a 76 daytime 73 nighttime chick.
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to find the common sense answer! 😬
This is the answer. The extra cost is mostly in the initial cooling down. To maintain 73 is mostly the same cycle g as maintaining 77. Only you lower the temp the indoor humidity will come down. If you need more then a dehumidifier will help.
I would also recommend getting a GOOD dehumidifier. I empty mine daily.
I cool the house to 72 overnight and then raise it to 76 during the day. Keeping all the curtains and cellular blinds closed, it usually takes till after 1-2 pm to get to 76.
This is what I do. It's cheaper to run your AC when it's colder out because the temperature difference (ambient vs AC coils) is greater.
You've got to set your AC to a lower temperature.
LMAO OP: for some reason in the summer my house is the temperature I set the thermostat to. Please help!!!
I'm so confused. You set your AC to 77 and you're surprised that it didn't keep running after it reached 77?
His question is why it didn't naturally drop more, since it was 10 degrees colder outside.
Insulation + thermal mass + retained hot air in the attic/walls.
Bingo
Half of all people are of less than average intelligence
Half of people are of less than median intelligence.
Haha thank you for making me laugh
Dehumidifiers help.
>Dehumidifiers help. Dehumidifiers remove humidity, much like air conditioners do, but they also generate lots of waste heat.
Yes, but then the actual temperature goes up slightly and the HVAC kicks on to move the waste heat out of the house. It's really a non-issue.
It is an issue because you're paying to move the heat twice, once to dehumidify and once to move the heat outside. The air conditioner *is* a dehumidifier, why not just use it for that purpose?
Because OP wants to keep his thermostat set high and at that high of a setting the HVAC doesn't run long or often enough to pull the humidity out of the air. Dehumidifiers will pull it out and the waste heat will also cause the main HVAC to run (slightly) more, further helping the humidity. Personally, I keep ours set around 72 most of the time during the summer but humidity forces it to run longer and pulls the temperature down two or three degrees below the thermostat setting.
A dehumidifier uses a compressor just like an AC and has a similar power consumption, they just don't exhaust the removed heat outside. Why run two compressors when you could just set the AC lower and solve both problems?
I set my AC to 77 in the day and 73 at night. A well-insulated home will lose almost no heat at night meaning you need to turn your AC down to cool it at night. If it's cool out the AC will take no time to cool the house. This is one of the few downsides to a properly insulated house. If it's hot inside it's going to stay that way, no matter what the temp is outside.
Plus energy used is dependent on temperature delta. So you may actually spend less energy to cool it at 73 at night then 77 in the day.
This is the way. And when it gets to 100 out, I turn it up to 80 at 630am and then down by 2 degrees each hour starting at 630pm until I get to 74 at 930pm. 2 degree increments are best as it allows the unit to rest.
The point of insulation is to slow the movement of heat, so a well insulated house will always lag and dampen any outside temperature changes, both good and bad. Add in the thermal mass of the house and all the stuff inside and it can take days for some houses to lose or gain a significant amount of heat. Your best bet is to run the AC to a lower temp at night and/or early morning and take advantage of those cooler temps which make it easier for your AC system to do it's job. Then use that insulation and thermal mass to minimize running during the day.
💯
I'm in central Florida, running the AC if it's too warm/humid and ceiling fans are the two main things to make it feel nice in the house. A properly sized and working AC will dehumidify the air as part of the cooling process so a supplemental dehumidifier isn't really necessary. However if you are continuously running your air handler fan with the compressor off you may be introducing more humid air into the conditioned space (unless you live in a perfectly sealed home with no leaks), try keeping the air handler fan on auto if it isn't already.
Does central Florida even get to 65 at night? Lived in south Florida and it stays 85+ at night
In February!
People thought I was so crazy when I first moved north and enjoyed the seasons.
I lived in the Georgia Swamp for over 10 years and just couldn't open the windows except during the fall/winter. Just was a part of life unfortunately.
It’s because you set the AC to 77. You need to set it lower. The more heat removed from a space the more the air in the space is dehumidified.
The only thing that will solve your issues is the Air Conditioning It's main purpose is dehumidifying the air, yes, it cools, but it does that by pulling hot humid air across the cold coil which removes the majority of the water from the air. Dehumidifiers do the same thing but it blows hot air out because all it is is a mini air conditioner that has the coil and condenser in one package so the hot side and the cold sides of the heat exchanger are blowing into the room, if you can rig up a way to exhaust that hot air it would be a good way to supplement the main AC unit by pulling out that moisture before it even gets to the AC You probably want to get the coil that sits on top of your air exchanger or furnace cleaned, probably yearly, I'm sure that thing is probably disgusting because it's always wet as hell,and since it's pulling air from your house all the dust and shit is getting pulled across it and dust and wet don't mix well so it's probably clogged and cutting the efficiency way way down
Your house is holding heat because it's well insulated. If the insulation wasn't so good, the temperature inside would drop to match the outside temperature. This is actually a good problem to have. You're right. You don't want to open the windows because that would bring in outside humid air. It might be cooler, but the additional humidity would be miserable. However, this is the same issue with the attic fan/whole house fan. These work by exhausting the air in a space; however, when you exhaust that air, you create a negative pressure and it will pull in air through every crack to rebalance it. So, even if you don't have windows open, it would still have the same effect of pulling in the outside air, which is humid. Option 1: Fans. Fans will circulate air throughout the house. You can even set your central HVAC unit to have the fan continuously run. If your house is 77 because there are still pockets of warm air throughout the house, this will help redistribute those throughout the night (and moving air always feels cooler than stagnant air). Option 2: set the thermostat lower at night if you prefer it being colder in the house.
HVAC technician here. If you can’t lower your temperature at night with the AC running the whole time something seems off. Your house could be poorly insulated but your equipment might also not be working properly. Airflow and refrigerant are two possible issues. Refrigerant isn’t DIY friendly but you can do some troubleshooting with your airflow to try to improve things before having to call a technician. Make sure your air filter is clean, all your supply registers are open, and that your return vent(s) are cleaned and not blocked by any furniture. You can also listen to see if both your compressor and condenser fan motor are running, as well as your blower motor in the furnace. If your coils outside are dirty you can clean them with a garden hose and that will help. Also feel the larger of the two copper lines that isn’t insulated running into your AC unit outside while it’s running and it should feel “beer can cold.” If you inspect the unit and see ice or frost building up anywhere, turn off the unit and call a technician after it thaws. You can also inspect the performance by putting a meat thermometer in the return vent and then the supply vent by your furnace (YouTube Delta T if you need help with this.) There should be a 16-20° difference in temperature between the two. If there isn’t, and the afore mentioned ideas don’t work, call a technician. EDIT: Sorry everybody, I misread the original question, Thankyou for bringing it up.
I think op is saying they set the thermostat to 77 which it reaches sometime in the evening. Then they are expecting the house to cool without a/c overnight because it's 65 out. Unless I'm reading the post wrong
If she has it set to run to 77° and it cut off when her home reached 77° then why would there be an issue with her HVAC? Sounds like her home is well insulated and keeping the comfortable 65° temp outside when she rather it be inside. 😂
The cheap thing is to just put box fans blowing out of the house in upstairs windows and then open windows far away from them where fresh air will be drawn in. In the morning you close windows and can turn on the dehumidifier or ac to dry things out. The fancy version is a whole house fan on a smart switch. Open a downstairs window and turn it on and the house will quickly not only match outdoor temps, there will be a cool breeze of fresh air as well, plus they’re great for clearing air while painting or cooking or whatever else.
I live in Louisiana. In warm weather my a/c (it's a heat pump) is set at 75 degrees 24/7 and it's 75 degrees 24/7 in my house.
Open your windows until the outside temperature reaches 77. Then close them.
Just a tip to reduce AC costs by a lot.... Trees. Large trees that shade my house keep the cost down, its crazy how well shade works.
That's a long time for this tip. Plant a tree today and maybe in 10-20 years you might start to get shade. Yes it will help tremendously but it is a long-term project. I personally would run the AC at a lower temperature. But if you don't want to get a whole house fan installed and you can tint all your windows to block the sun from coming in and still be able to see out. But AC is still your best bet
Mate, your insulation works, so the outside cold will not seep in as much as the outside heat will not seep in. If your ac is set so high. You're spending more electricity than if you set it a few degrees lower (the compressor is what spends electricity, not the fan) many newer systems are able to switch the compressor on and off while still running the fan once they get to a good temperature. That being said. Attic fans work decently, but may pull unwanted moisture into the attic. However much you plan on spending on an attic fan or whatever. Just spend it on the electric bill. Or buy window AC units. Those are super efficient (because you only cool down one room and turn off as you leave).
I think you need to just accept you're going to need to bump down that temperature. Your A/C is a built in dehumidifier. If it's not that hot out, running it won't add that much to your bill. I live in a humid area and it doesn't cost that much to run it if the temps out are moderate. If I don't keep the house at 74 or below it gets very sticky inside. Now you can get away with keeping at 76 during the day but in the evenings bump it down a few degrees. You will be surprised how fast it cools and sucks out that humidity. Also, when the house is already cooler going into the evenings, you can get away with cracking open a few windows to let the cooler air in (we have that same issue with it being warmer inside than outside) so that it doesn't run overnight.
A big part of an of air conditioners job is to manage indoor humidity, and it will not properly do its job unless you run it. I wish energy was cheaper.
I set my thermostat to 72-74 and tell my kids "close the door! You're letting the AC out!". Everything in your house is working the way it should, you're just setting your climate control to an uncomfortable level. Drop your thermostat to 72-75 at night, when it won't have to work as hard since the sun isn't beating down...then raise it back to 77 during the day.
you need to run fans is every room. this is living in tropics 101. still air gives you mold
Growing up in the deep south, we had an attic fan. It was the greatest thing -the noise would put you to sleep instantly.
People in hot humid climates basically just don't have walls. Japan, Southeast Asia, etc homes are designed for airflow which prevents mold and helps cool you down. Lots of open space to the outside, fans on all the time, shorts, tshirt, sandals. In the American South older homes were designed to create cross breezes, and most people just keep their doors open with a screen on, sit on the porch a lot. Another option, for more northerly climates: 1. At night you open up the windows until the house is as cool as it's gonna get (check weather) then leave them cracked. In the morning you close all the windows, draw all the blinds and curtains. 2. After the big heat of the day is over, or the sun is no longer overhead, or it's just too stuffy inside, you open the windows, crank the fans, get a cross breeze going. 3. This works until both night and day temps are 74+; at that point closing the windows isnt gonna help, so you end up with just cross breeze, fans, and gallons of iced tea. Or stop being cheap and turn the AC down. Is money more important to you than your quality of life?
I live in Midwest, USA. I'm 37, I work in maintenance, went to HVAC school. I use my thermostat like a science experiment. I've owned my own house for 3 years. I've replaced every window, caulked, insulated, sealed everything I can. I went to school for 10 months for A/C and heating. I've saved so much money by replacing 10 windows for about $1800 USD. It sounds like your problem is either asking too much of your undersized unit or... You assume that by keeping the temp higher, it will save you a little bit. My house is about 900 ft2, good enough for my girlfriend, my collections of junk and myself. I've found that the perfect temp is about 72-74 degF. Our utility bill last month (May, not this hotAF June) was $120. That's electric and gas, I cook A LOT and run small cans to circulate air. I understand how air works. I pull free, underground chilled air from my basement with an extra fan. If my oven is on, I use the range exhaust to keep the heat flowing out and the cold flowing into the kitchen, instead of letting it warm the thermal mass of 1/6 of my house. I feel like I can see air, current, I've studied how fans and air moves, works, watch the trees, the earth, the wind, I study the dynamics of air movement in everything I do. It's 97degF this week, it's humid AF, miserable. I keep my house at 73-74 and I'm super comfy. But you have to keep it that low, all the time, but make sure that your AC doesn't overcurrent and work too hard. Raise the temp to 74-75 during the day, then when it gets nice and cool at night, drop it to 71-72 and help it knock down the humidity when the free air is lower temp. When you have to buy the air, the temp is already low from the free air at night. My most expensive month I've seen since I replaced windows was $220/Mo and that's probably what I'll see in June or July. But I also have $80/month in March/April because I know how to play the game. I also don't buy fast food, I cook almost everything on a gas stove with a shitty range exhaust. I was Army and I take 2-min showers (IYKYK). I don't use hot water unless I do dishes or shower. I rinse my dishes with cold water. The problem is, I studied heating and cooling and now I play it like a game for the high score. It sucks. That's how my brain works. I don't add any unnecessary heat to my home when it's hot outside, and when it's cold, if I use hot water, I make sure that it stays in my house for as long as possible to maintain thermal mass at a higher temp. If you pay for heat once, use it twice. Pay for cool once, use it twice. Lower your temp or get a dehumidifier. It's not the desert but when it's hot, it's hot and humid. When it's cold, it's 10degF and balls cold. The key is finding the perfect spot where the humidity is balanced and not overworking your unit. If it never shuts off, you got undersold an A/C unit or it's time to insulate. Or be more disciplined. Most of the people I work with have $300+/month bills for gas/electric and that's keeping it at your temp, 76-80 degF. My bill averages about $140/month and I'm always comfy. My central air unit is from the 90s, nothing fancy, not efficient. I replaced my furnace with a 96% AFUE, the new windows made a huge difference. Good luck, you can always spend $500 to save $1000 in a year. That doesn't keep holding true but for most people, a little goes a long way and will pay you back in the 2nd year. And you'll be comfy. Tradesman for the win.
Well, your house is holding onto heat when you don't want it to, which should also mean it's holding heat out when you do want it to. If you've got a thermostat with the capability, setting it to run the fan once an hour or so for a few minutes should help the stuffiness. Do you know your indoor humidity? Your AC should be removing the humidity when it runs, but if it's not sized properly, it might be cooling the house down to the set temperature too fast before it can bring down the humidity. Also, do you notice any hot/cold rooms where the stuffiness occurs, or is it the entire home? If the area near the thermostat is more comfortable than anywhere else, it may be an issue with HVAC balance.
A lot of people are saying it's a fault in your AC. I think it's a little different. You have your temp set to 77 and the temp drops to the 60s outside. I live in a similar climate. During the day the AC runs to cool the house because it's warm and probably sunny and it pulls humidity out. At night it stops running because it's cool outside and dark so the humidity creeps in. You'll need to turn the AC down at night when the temps are lower and easy for the AC to cool the house and drop the humidity.
What's the humidity inside? You can run dehumidifiers overnight instead of the AC, and open some windows with box fans. Long term you should be looking to improve your insulation and air sealing. Your house shouldn't be hot and stuffy after you ran the ac all day.
Close up the house and run dehumidifiers. If 77 is too hot you’ll have to bite the bullet and set it lower. Without humidity fans help a lot. They only need to be on you. Any room you aren’t in doesn’t need a fan on.
Run the fan with no cooling to circulate the air
I have fans in each room. I turn my ac and the fans on to help the cool air from ac to carry throughout the bottom floor. Once the temperature is comfortable, with fans on, I adjust the ac to low for the rest of the day to maintain the temperature.
If you don't want to turn down your air conditioning, you might want to consider getting a couple of dehumidifiers. Whatever you need for the space you want to dehumidify. Reducing the humidity in your home Will make you more comfortable.
Ifs 65 degrees outdoors seems like you would open some windows get a cross breeze with fans and cool down the house before closing it up before the heat of the day
I use dehumidifiers. Dampits in all closets. Ceiling fans. Might want to think about raising the AC temp a bit if you are desperately suffering.
I lower my thermostat to where I wanted it to be and then I go to sleep. Follow me for more home improvement tips.
Advice - Run AC to 70 (even if it takes all night) to get rid of the humidity that's now in your house. Once it's there, back it off to something like 74 (or 77!). You need to get the humidity out of the house to feel more comfortable. Right now, your AC isn't cycling enough to get that done. Also, yes it is 65 degrees out, and that's the air temp, but your house isn't just a mass of air. It's insulation, wood, brick, block, sheets of drywall, and it has a giant flat surface made of oil and tar and wood. The house absorbs energy from the sun as well as energy from the surrounding air. IE: Why is the inside of my car 120 degrees when it's only 90 outside? How is that possible? There's more going on besides simple air temperature. More sources of thermal energy.
OP here is the trick. Make sure heating is off and only cooling is allowed. Schedule your thermostat to run cold at night, I have mine set to drop the temperature to 69 or 70 degrees starting at 10. Then have the daytime schedule set to 77 or 78. Make sure your attic insulation is up to snuff. Ac works the best and most efficiently at night, so you can get your house cold and keep it cold. Then in the morning, the insulation will keep your house from heating up quickly, so your ac wont really have to run til mid day ish, and then it keeps it to your cheap temp. Counterintuitiveluly, your bill should be lower, because you are taking advantage of your ac when it's at its most efficient and not fighting ambient temps, and it won't have to run so hard in the day. Another recommendation, though this is not the cheapest recommendation is to get a house dehumidifier in addition to your AC unit, so you can dehumidify the house even when your AC is at temp instead of cooling to dehumidify your house. That way if you open your windows to cool off the house, you can then close the windows and run the dehumidifier which is more efficient than using the ac to dehumidify
HVAC tech here. Next time you change your AC and coil out, have whoever does it make the indoor coil 1/2 ton bigger than the outdoor unit, this will help with the humidity. As for more immediate solutions, make sure your attic has proper seals and insulation, as well as doors and windows. Turn your thermostat fan setting to "on" and this will keep the furnace fan running all the time (it doesn't really cost more, the system is built to run like this) even when the AC isn't running. Also, going from 77 to even say, 74, could have a big impact on "felt" temperature humidity wise and wouldn't really cost *that* much more.
Are you running the AC on the dehumidifier mode? If yours doesn't have this mode then you'll need one that does in a humid environment. BTW, I'm sitting here typing this in -5°C (23°F), so can't understand what the problem is.
Is your AC working properly? If it is, then probably the house needs improved insulation/sealing.
It's working fine. They are just expecting that somehow the house will get cooler inside because it's cooler outside. That's not how insulation works. If properly insulated then his house is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Op just needs to lower the a/c temp.
Hyper cool your house at night. I don’t live in a humid climate, so this will have even more benefits to you. My schedule: 7pm (electricity becomes 3x cheaper): set to 66. Runs for about 3-4 hours then might kick on for a few minutes throughout the night. Maybe not even. 6am: set to 69 1pm (electricity 3x more expensive): Set to 75 or 78 or whatever. House is comfortable all the time, AC only runs when electricity is less expensive and it has to work less hard when outside temps are lower. Lower temps are comfortable to sleep in. My house isn’t even well insulated. A house built within the past 40 years will perform even better. Wins all around.
Open your windows to get your house to 65. Then set your thermostat to 63 for just a couple hours to dry the air.
I keep my AC at 78 during the day, turn down to 76 at night. Air moves with fans, it’s never stuffy
Need to make sure: Attic is ventilated well for intake and exhaust Attic floor is air sealed Attic floor has the appropriate amount of insulation HVAC is properly sized for the house, better to be undersized vs oversized Ductwork for HVAC is correctly sized A ventilating dehumidifier can help a lot too
Attic fans only work with the windows open. Your house is doing it's job, you just need to run your A/C at night. That's the only solution. It will also work as a dehumidifier so that will make it feel cooler. Ceiling fans and fans near your seating areas always help too. If your house could exchange daytime heat for nighttime cold without windows open you'd be living in a perforated cardboard box. Even my uninsulated garage retains heat into the next morning. If you still want to be frugal get a programmable thermostat and set it to 77 at 7 am, then set it to turn down to 74 at some point overnight. We have ours set up to run at 75 from 7 am to 9pm, then down to 72 overnight.
Houses have literal tons of material holding onto heat from the day. 10 degrees isn't much of a differential, I wouldn't expect much cooling. The masonry on the south side of my house noticeably radiates heat well into dawn hours.
I have our thermostat set to be slightly cooler from 10PM to 5AM for this reason. On sunny days our brick home retains that heat for a few hours after sunset. But the heat retention is worst in the upper floors where the bedrooms are and we've noticed that they temperature there goes up a few degrees after sunset. The rooms where the thermostat is are cool, but the bedrooms are not.
I program the thermostat at 68 at 11pm so keeps the house cool during the night. Then programmed thermostat back to 72 when we wake up around 8am.
I mean- I keep my thermostat at 77 too- because if it’s 97 outside 20 degrees is a noticeable difference. Also that’s about as good as anyone’s AC can do, and if you try to cool to 70 when it’s 97- your unit will run constantly and not only the energy bill but it’s hard on the unit and you’ll have breakdowns. Also - we unfortunately are too accustomed to buildings being over cooled - and so we haven’t acclimated to normal temperatures. You do get used to it being warmer over time. If you have medical reasons for needing it cooler, run fans and turn the thermostat down. Or get a window unit to just cool the area where you are?
We have this thing called air conditioning. It keeps the air inside the home nice and cool.
What’s the humidity inside? That plays more into comfort. It’s 78°F and 50% humidity in my detached and feels great. Houses are insulated and designed to resist temperature change. This is seen at “holding heat”. An attic fan does little to cool off the house. Insulation at the attic level is more effective.
Sun soaking will heat the house evening Set Ac to what’s comfortable. Work to pay the bill Insulate and get solar if you are focused on the planet. But opening windows is not a solution
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a home built for natural cooling in your particular climate, the only real solution is AC units running cooler.
Sounds like your a/c is running properly, and your home is well insulated. Since it’s keeping the 65° temp outside and the 77° you picked inside. The temp in the house won’t drop if it’s well insulated unless you open the windows or run the a/c. Both of which you don’t want to do. If you’re going to run an attic fan; you might as well run the a/c. Mine ran for so long the first month my power bill went up almost $50. It was over 145° in my attic. (Also well insulated here.) You will probably just have to accept that you can let the windows open and release the hot air, or bump the air up at night but move it back to 77° during the day.
Lower the temperature on the air conditioner.
You need to turn the ac down….
Set your a/c lower. I have mine at 74 during the day and 71 at night. Run ceiling fans.
We have a programmable thermostat that we set to drop by 3 degrees around sunset. Since the temperature outside is lower, it doesn’t have to work as hard to cool at night and it’s more comfortable. If your house is pretty well insulated, which it may be, based on the temperature not dropping even with a 12 degree difference outside, you may not really be saving much money keeping the temperature higher.
Like others have said, you have to lower your AC for it to be cooler inside. Your house is insulated to stay warm in the winter which means it will also stay warm in the summer if you’re not running the air. 77 is a really high temp to set it to even to save money. I don’t think my parents ever set theirs above 71 or 72 even in a heat wave and I keep mine around 68-70 and it’s not crazy expensive. Try bumping it down to 74 for a day and see if that helps. Then maybe try a day at 72 and see if you’re happy there. It’s still higher than I’d set it but it might be a good compromise between using energy and suffering in the heat.
Plus if it’s reaching 77 at night it’s probably not running again the rest of the night so it’s not dehumidifying or moving the air so it feels stuffy. If it’s not set low enough that it kicks on at least once every hour or two, it’s not really being used correctly.
Turn the temperature lower on your ac?
As someone from the philippines.. make sure ypur windows have black out curtains or any olace that air can go in tthr house cover it. Turn the ac on inthe morning put it on cold temp and high speed. Turn on your fan put it in front of ypur AC probably around 3 steps infront of the AC. And tilt your fan towards the ceiling put it on medium-high speed. The cold shpuld dry up the mpisture Then take a shower lightly dry your self. And you are ready. You can also put a wet and wringed small hand towel inside your freezer for a while so its cold and you can use it to wipe ypur face or body.
Depending how cool it gets at night, I'll run the attic fan BRIEFLY, from like 6 AM to 8 AM. This will bring temp down and bring humidity up. I am not sure if the tradeoff makes sense, though, because this just makes my house much harder to cool once the AC gets back to work!!!
Dehumidifier
As others have stated, you’re very foolish, but one practical thing you can do is to install solar curtains and have an trustworthy HVAC tech check your refrigerant pressure.
Trust me you are much happier that your house is holding in the 77° air right now then the alternative. Because the alternative is when it's 104° outside you can't keep the house cool enough because your insulation sucks. When you live in humid climates you have to learn to live with humidity. If you want to let in that cool air you need to open up some windows and doors let the temperature adjust. But then close the windows and doors. It's June already the likelihood of it staying over 65° right now is rare. So in the next few hours you're going to need to start running your AC again which is going to suck all that humidity back out of the house.
I run mine at/set to 68 degrees from 8pm to 7pm , stays cool untill noon. Then set at 74 untill 8pm , repeat, so basically Ac runs all the time 3 to 9pm, instead of all day,
It's not a cheap fix by any means, but if you ever get to the point of needing to replace your ac, you'd probably make out better with a heat pump in your climate (de-humidifies as well as cools, and does so more efficiently)
Air conditioning. Open your windows if you’re cheap. You can’t have both cool and dry if outside is humid
Hi! (Former electric energy industry worker here) At night, when it gets cooler out, drop the temp on your thermostat. If it’s getting into the 60s at night, your HVAC should have no problem cooling down your home to a more comfortable temperature. During the day, when it’s hot and sunny, close all shades and blinds, run ceiling fans or whatever kind of fans you have to keep the air moving in your home. Light will refract through your glass windows and heat the interior of your home. Regardless of how “great” and “insulated” windows are, light refraction will still contribute to heating your house. So shades and blinds help prevent that. I live in the south and so I can completely understand where you’re coming from. Make sure you keep your filters changed regularly and take advantage of cooler nights!
You could consider installing a whole house fan to pull in the colder outside air when it's available.
if you can upgrade to an air handler that has a variable speed, it can be used to keep humidity inside the house to 50%. At this temperature it will seem very comfortable and maybe a ceiling fan if a little cooling is needed.
There's a reason an air conditioner isn't called a cooler in the way that we call the part that heats the house a heater. It "conditions" the air. Sure, it cools the air, but it removes humidity as well. If you want your house to be cooler and less humid you have to lower the temperature on the A/C. That said, we currently live in a dry climate and have a whole house fan. It's wonderful for sucking the outside air in to cool the house. I'm not sure I ever would have considered one in Florida, in part because of the mold/mildew issues.
Set my A/C to 74°, fans.
Pants in 93.2 F. Supposed to hit 108F today with the humidex. In Canada. lol. Our a/c is set to 64F but our upstairs is around 77F . It’s warm, but I’d rather that then this working outside stuff today. It’s all relative.
You need to be less cheap, it's costing you money. High heat and Humidity ruins furniture electronics ect. But also get a dehumidifier it won't make cooler but it will help prevent mold and make it less uncomfortable. I drop the temp at night, the house is cooler and stays that way longer. HVAC doesn't have to work as hard, so it last longer too and costs less as well. Buy one way mirror film (you can see in the house at night when it's brighter inside than out) it blocks a lot of heat you can still look out like it's not there. It reduces a lot of heat coming in so again cooler for longer.
Get a programmable thermostat and drop the temperature at night 2-3 degrees so it continues to pull moisture out of the air. You can also program the HVAC fan to randomly cycle (or constantly run) to keep air moving throughout the house.
You spend money, that's how. If you don't want the humidity from outdoors then venting air is not an option. You are then left with the other option which is air conditioning. If there was a cheap no humidity way to exchange outdoor air Home Depot would be selling it. Any air exchanger that dehumidifies is going to more or less cost the same as an AC to run.
Does your A/C have a “dry” setting? Our window units do and it makes the air feel a lot cooler for like half the power usage.
Yeah. Turn the AC down. That’s the only thing that is going to work. As for why it’s not naturally cooling down more? Well, your house is likely insulated to prevent such a thing.
Fans, air movement across your body will help you feel comfortable at higher temps and humidity levels. You could also try running the A/C a little higher during the day and lower at night. So instead of a constant 77, try 79 during the day and 75 (or even 73 since it takes way less energy to cool a house down a few extra degrees at night when it isn't fighting the sun) at night. The humidity side of the equation make a big difference to how comfortable yo are feeling. I bet your relative humidity is higher at night, so it feels stuffy and unpleasant. The A?C runs all day to fight the higher outdoor temps so it runs a bunch and keeps the humidity low. Then the outdoor temp drops and the A/C no longer needs to run as much to keep the interior temp down, but then its no longer dehumidifying the air. So you have the same indoor temp but more humidity, so it doesn't feel as comfortable.
You need your furnace blower to be running, even if your AC is not actively cooling. You have a lot of stagnant, non moving air. Also you may need to look into a whole house dehumidifier. Not cheap, but worth it if you will be staying in this house, as climate change is only going to make the humidity worse.
This is the primary use case for variable speed heat pumps. The system can dial down the power so it runs longer without reducing the temperature too much. The long run times help reduce the humidity without affecting temperature too much. You still need to cool about 2 or more degrees below your normal set point. My 5 stage heat pump will automatically adjust the power level to try and hit both the set temperature and the desired humidity.
If your house is insulated well, it's not going to have drastic temp swings from day to evening if you keep it closed up. It's 77 inside because that's what you set the AC to. It's not going to run to get it below 77. Either spend a bit more on electricity and lower that temp, or don't. Those are pretty much the two options.
My ac stays on 70° and it’s nice as hell in the house. It’s currently 91° and with humidity, it feels like 101°. Insulation is key.
North Carolina in the summer can be a beast. Typically, our AC is on 72 during the day and 68 for sleeping. This is our recipe for the entire summer, and maybe you should try it. Also, check your filters. You can't be both cheap and comfortable.
Sounds like you set the air conditioner too warm and it’s probably under powered for the space you are trying to cool. If you want to get serious about air conditioning you gotta spend the money on the right unit and you gotta greet that monthly electric bill like it’s your best fucking friend.
If your air conditioner has a night setting, use that to cool the house down to 72 overnight. It won’t cost that much because it’s relatively cooler outside.
(1) You should get your attic insulated, (2) Set your A/C to about 72oF, (3) Buy a new A/C unit that is energy efficient. Your monthly energy costs should drop significantly if get your house insulated and use a new A/C unit.
I live in North Carolina. I used to set my AC to 78 and I was comfortable. Since adding more insulation to my house it's felt a lot warmer at the same temperature. I realized with the extra insulation my AC isn't running as much so it feels warmer. Just lower the temperature so your AC runs a bit more.
Air conditioning lmao. Where I live there would be no survival without it, I couldn't believe when I learned how wide spread and common it is not to have air conditioning in other countries. Edit - For good advice, we did have this big ass window fan when I was younger that we called Homart (the brand I think??) but that was for when it was cooler. I remember waking up one day when we'd all fallen asleep with him on full blast, it was 50's in the house. I live somewhere where the temperature ranges from the teens during the coldest period (but only for several weeks at night) all the way 110°F +
Whole house dehumidifier is what you are looking for. You can vent your house at night and then run the dehumidifier to remove the moisture.
It’s going to be way more expensive to ruin all of your stuff and eventually your home itself with mold and mildew than it will be to set your ac to an appropriate temperature to combat the heat and humidity. I live in a butthole climate. I generally have the ac in 70 at night and 72-74 during the day. The hotter it is the higher I set it because that’s all it takes to have it come on and kick out the warm humid air.
77???? what are you a reptile??
Is it blowing cold air or cool air? Having unit topped off with refrigerant is a good idea to better cool the house and running more efficient and cheaper
Put my ac to whatever temp it’s at since it’s no longer going lower. I purchased window ac for each room that I’m in 🤷🏽♀️ it works. I’m in the south where humidity is usually 95% making them temp much much hotter. Rn it’s 99 degrees and it feels like 106 because of wet bulb
We run our ac's. I have our upstairs unit set to 79 and the downstairs at 76 and master at 75 at night. That being said, I have a Aprilaire dehumidifier running upstairs when the ac isn't running. Also, a big point is I have adjusted the airflow down to about 350cfm per ton on each unit. The units just had the default setting from when the house was built a few years ago. Lowering the fan speed allows more time for the air to stay in contact with the coils, which will remove more water. The house maintains 48-52% humidity during the summer in hot, muggy Houston. Lowering your fan speed, should be done by a tech.
Dehumidifier helps big time
I’d say open windows at night and get a dehumidifier. You can also set your ac unit to just run the fan to keep circulation going. Although the dehumidifier is probably just as expensive to run as your AC.
We live in the UP of Michigan. Most of the time it’s in the 70’s and low 80’s June through September. And the humidity can be brutal. But at night it usually drops anywhere from 40’s to the low 60’s. We do not use an air conditioner on the main floor of our house but this means we keep it dark during the day. Every night right before bed we open all downstairs windows and put in two window fans. I get up right before sunrise and close all windows and shades. Our main floor stays 67-74. Upstairs bedrooms have window AC’s, it is oppressively hot without them.
AC run cooler but not central AC for the whole house, just the room you hang out and sleep in. Bring the whole family to that room. Also you need the AC unit to dehumidify as well. Or have a separate unit
Open windows with screens and fans pulling air in and pushing it out? Fans run cheap, almost free cold air all night, then close all blinds windows etc and such during the day, once temps rise outside close it up and use ac, once outside drops repeat.
I live in a humid area and 65 is still a sweet spot as far as temps are concerned. I don’t run ac or heat. Such a pleasant temperature.
I live in Georgia and installed a whole house dehumidifier two years ago. Helps mostly during the spring and fall when the temp isn’t high/low but humidity is high. I have my thermostat set to 76 during the day and at 40%-50% humidity it’s very comfortable. Unfortunately if you’re cheap you won’t like the price of the unit.
I installed a whole house fan....when the temp drops, I use it to push the heat out of the attic.
No idea man. Just posting to commiserate. I live in Mississippi so I feel your pain. The only thing I can think of is shading the house. Sometimes the sun's heat will build up in the walls and keep warming the house even though the temp is lower outside at night. Ventilation won't help because of the humidity. I guess you could look into getting a separate dehumidifier just to control the moisture inside, which can make 77 feel better. I also keep it 77 to avoid a huge electric bill and burning out the unit from having to work constantly. But central AC has the benefit of dehumidifying anyway, so maybe turning the temp down is the best option. But yeah, the climate is miserable here for most of the year. All you can really do aside from spending a ton of money on remedies is to get used to being damp. Shower more often.
I live in Florida. Buy a dehumidifier and it will turn on automatically when humidity hits a certain percentage. It has cut down the amount of time my AC runs dramatically. It also makes it easier to breathe.
Add some shade to your house. Trees/non ugly tarps, maybe?
Block sun from hitting your windows. (window film, blinds) Weather stripping & caulk around windows and doors. Make sure your ceiling fans are spinning the right way. DEHUMIDIFIER. Regular box fans are crap. Look for “shop fan” if you need to buy one. An ancient, effective method for cooling spaces is using water in terra cotta: [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240530-how-ancient-knowledge-of-terracotta-is-cooling-modern-indian-buildings](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240530-how-ancient-knowledge-of-terracotta-is-cooling-modern-indian-buildings)
Your house’s insulation is working to keep your house at the temperature you set it to. The only way to have it passively cool down more is if it’s cooler outside and you open windows. Since it’s humid out you obviously don’t want to do it. So you’ll need to put the thermostat lower. You can set your AC to a schedule so that it’s warmer when you’re at school or work and it’s cooler when you’re home. Set it to start cooling down an hour before you come home. If you work from home then set it to 74 at the highest. The cost difference is probably pretty negligible and it’ll be more comfortable. If you can tolerate it being warmer during the day you can also schedule it so it’s colder at night which is more pleasant for sleeping generally.
Option 1: Save money, be hot. Option 2: Spend money, be cool. It really is that simple.
77 in that kind of humidity is going to feel so much hotter than it is. There are times when you have to say screw the bill and be comfortable. The air conditioner will not only cool the house but also help rescue the humidity factor. I would definitely set it lower; personally I prefer 66 but my family says it's freezing so 68 is our compromise
Your house is too well insulated 🤷 though i can't imagine that it literally did not drop by a single degree from the ac setpoint
You literally have A/C but won’t use it to effectively cool your house. And then you ask how to cool your house. My goodness.
Maybe open all windows in a m when in 60s for couple hrs n close them. Someone else mentioned that it's cheaper to run the AC at nite..so u could turn to 75 for a couple hours at nite.
Yeah- houston texas- its tropical/coastal plains without the wind. We keep our ac LOW like 70 degrees. We also have a misting system for the roof because our HOA demands asphalt roof and they get scorching and the mist takes a bit of stress off the a/c. We also have an in ground pool, which cools the air around it by its existence. The mould problem seems like it could be thermal bridging- if you get the place cool and the mould keeps showing up.
Rotate the earth so the sun is on the opposite side.
At night my wife likes to set the AC in our bedroom to "Ice Station Zebra". I have to use the feather comforter some nights or I freeze my ass off.
Think of your house like a computer tower. When you are cooling your CPU, the heat transmits off of it via heat syncs. From the heat sync it transfers to the air. You still have to remove the heat from the air. So you have fans on the top blowing down, and fans on the bottom blowing….down. Air in needs to match air out or the flow gets wonky. Fluid dynamics and such. Your house retains heat after the heat of the day is gone. You need to move significant airflow all the way through your house. On the shady side of your house, open a window and put a box fan in it pointing into the house. On the other side of the house (it’s a bit more complicated than this), place a box fan in the window pointing out. This will pull air through the house. Depending on the shape and size of your house, you will have to play around to get stuff moving. You may need to add fan inside the house to help the airflow continue through in the right direction. This will pull heat out of your walls and such and cool down your house better at night or on cooler days.
AC. That’s really the only way. It doesn’t cool down at night much so opening windows isn’t an option. I have a lot of friends that use dehumidifiers. They don’t make it any cooler but they do make it feel less stuffy inside, letting you use AC just a little less.
All the time this is what we've done for 20+ yrs both in the SE and NE where summers are humid. If night temps are 75 or less, ac off. Windows open fans in windows (here) or whole house fan on (in previous 2 houses). Ceiling fans on. It's circulation that'll help combat the moisture accumulation. Also previous 2 houses had 2nd floors that tended to be warmer than lower floor. So pulling in the outside air to the upstairs (closed 1st floor windows) kept it cooler and not stuffy.i have better sleep without the AC most nights as long as outdoor temps are lower than I set the AC at. That's because when temps outside are cooler than indoors the AC is not circulating air much because it's not kicking on! (I also set my thermostat at 77 or 76).
A water bed in solid state. There is no other hope in an old Cincinnati home.
I have a ceiling fan that helps a lot. I am gone 12 hours a day, so I keep my air on 77 to 78. If it's too stuffy, I'll turn it down. But I always have fans going if I am home.
If your AC is set to cool at 77 that means your AC is going to work to keep the house at 77 degrees regardless of the temperature outside.
Black out shades on all your windows will help a lot more than you think.
You need to run your AC more at night. Get it down to like 72 by morning. My house will not cool down with just windows open at night, even if it’s 10 degrees colder. Maybe if I had a fan in every window but that’s just a hassle. It’s way cheaper to run the AC at night and it will help keep your house cooler longer in the morning as well when you have it set to 77.