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| I'm sure this has been covered, and I apologize to re-hash this.....But
My question is....what is the comparison in electrical use between a window unit (let's say 6000BTU) vs. that of a central unit (no idea of BTUs)? If you want only to cool a bedroom overnight, is it better to run the 6000BTU unit or central air? Thanks,
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| 6000BTU |
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| Harry: The smallest central air unit is 1.5 tons (18,000 btu/hr). The 6000 btu unit would be much cheaper to run to cool a bedroom only. If you run a central air unit, you are cooling every room that has a supply vent. The newer window units are very energy efficient compared to ones from a few years ago. |
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| We do this every night in the bedroom with a 6000 BTU GE unit. It uses about 3.5 kilowatts per night (11 hours run). And this is at a temperature of 71. The central unit would be far more expensive. That's why we do this. |
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- Posted by Mike(mike_a31@yahoo.com) onThu, Aug 2, 07 at 17:55
| I installed central AC 2 years back and started to ask the same question after a few $150 July electric bills. I found a really cool cost and usage calculator at www.energystar.gov. Apparently, A 7000 BTU room AC in a 400 pk hr zone (SE Michigan) costs $668/yr to run at $.1644/kWh. A 1.5 ton cental AC unit (bigenough for a 1500 sq ft, 1.5 story home)costs $243/yr. This didn't make sense to me. Afterall, I never had $150 bills when I used the window unit. Then I remembered 2 really important facts. One, I rarely used the window unit because I preferred to keep the window available for outdoor air and because to room unit was so noisy. Second, electricity prices have jumped a lot in the recent past and are probably a lot higher than when I used the window unit. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Savings Calculator
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- Posted by Mike(mike_a31@yahoo.com) onThu, Aug 2, 07 at 18:14
| WHOOPS! Caught a serious error! I was reading the lifetime cost for the window unit, not the annual cost. The corrected stmt would be. A 8000 BTU room AC in a 400 pk hr zone (SE Michigan) costs $37/yr to run at $.1644/kWh. A 1.5 ton cental AC unit (bigenough for a 1500 sq ft, 1.5 story home)costs $243/yr. We had a few hot streaks this summer, so I will probably spend about $300 on summer electricity. I only put the central AC on for a hot streak. Otherwise, I leave it off. I suppose that's the convenience cooling only 1 room; it's not a huge money proposition to use the AC. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Savings Calculator
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