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Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby Andrew Hardy » Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:21 pm

24 to 26 for cooling in the summer.
20-21 for warmth in winter.
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby Chrisdee » Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:25 pm

Our ones are very old, 18 years old now, we have them serviced every year and my husband cleans the filters probably every 3 months. We have the nighttime tariff from Iberdrola and normally only have the aircon on from 11p, - 1pm the next day, the extra on our bill is around 60 euros a month which we think is worth it. We have it set on cool at 20 degrees, husband is happy but I have to have a fleecy blanket over a sheet
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby 2Sheds » Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:01 pm

marcliff wrote:It all depends on what type and rating the aircon is.
If it is an inverter type, which takes the outside air in and either cools or heats it and slows down without stopping, then it will be very cheap to run. For every kw of heat or cooling it is rated at, you will get about 3 times the amount. So, for example, a 1kw until will give up to 3kw of heating or cooling. That 1kw will cost about 13 cents an hour (ish) but will become more efficient as it slows down and will probably cost more like 10 cents and hour on average.
Obviously, the higher the power rating the more it will cost.

If it's not an inverter type then it will use the amount of power it is rated at, eg 3Kw will cost about 40 cents an hour to run.

We keep ours on at 24C in the summer for cooling and 21C in the winter for heating which seems to be the best for us.
This July has been extremely hot and humid (even more so than August it seemed) and we have use the aircon quite extensively especially at night. Our electricity bill shows an extra 14 euro for the month which is pretty good I reckon.

Remember that each aircon unit will cost that, not overall. We have ducted aircon so 3 rooms upstairs and 3 rooms upstairs are just using one unit each and we never have both on at the same time. Only problem with the ducted ones are that they cost more in the first place and, if anything goes wrong, will cost a lot to have circuit boards etc replaced.
Saying that, we've had ours in for over 8 years and, just cleaning the filters twice a year, and they have worked perfectly (touch wood) for that time.
(Now I've said that one of them is bound to go wrong soon).



Reading your post has triggered something I cant get my head around!

My aircon like most has both cool and heat modes. Yet I could set the same temperature on either mode.

eg. if I set 21C in heat mode whats the difference between that and 21C in cool mode?
In practice there seems to be a big difference in what the unit throws out. I would have thought it more logical to restrict each mode to a range of hot or cold temperatures. Either that or just have a single mode where you simply set the temperature.

Hope my question makes sense!
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby PeteKnight » Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:17 pm

If your aircon is in heating mode, and set to 21°C then it will attempt to warm your property up to the target temperature (21°) and after that it will probably just keep the air circulating within the room (depending on what fan setting you have selected).
If the room temperature is above 21°, which it certainly will be in this weather, then the aircon will be doing nothing other than pushing the air around the room. The effect of the fan will make it feel that it’s cooling you slightly, as it helps to evaporate sweat from your skin which makes you feel cooler.

In cooling mode, it will attempt to lower the temperature down to the target temperature of 21°. If it’s currently around 27° (What is expect at this time of year) then it will be working fairly hard to lower the temperature, so will be blowing out lots of refrigerated air.

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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby Paulwilko10 » Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:21 pm

marcliff wrote:If you don't have the handbooks for the aircon (which will tell you if it's an inverter or not) then look up the make and model on the internet and that will tell you.

I know the new one is invertor that is being fitted, but the rest i will have to google, thanks
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby 2Sheds » Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:03 pm

PeteKnight wrote:If your aircon is in heating mode, and set to 21°C then it will attempt to warm your property up to the target temperature (21°) and after that it will probably just keep the air circulating within the room (depending on what fan setting you have selected).
If the room temperature is above 21°, which it certainly will be in this weather, then the aircon will be doing nothing other than pushing the air around the room. The effect of the fan will make it feel that it’s cooling you slightly, as it helps to evaporate sweat from your skin which makes you feel cooler.

In cooling mode, it will attempt to lower the temperature down to the target temperature of 21°. If it’s currently around 27° (What is expect at this time of year) then it will be working fairly hard to lower the temperature, so will be blowing out lots of refrigerated air.

Pete.



Thanks for the explanation. But why not just have a single mode where you set the temperature and the unit switches to heat or cool automatically. So if you had such an 'auto mode' why would you need separate heat and cool modes?
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby PeteKnight » Mon Sep 02, 2019 4:20 pm

Many units do have an Auto mode, and I’d be surprised if yours doesn’t. However, I never use auto mode, as it can potentially confuse the aircon unit in some situations.
As we use our property as a holiday h9me that makes life simple - in winter we ant heating, in summer we want cooling.

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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby Rodt » Mon Sep 02, 2019 5:58 pm

All very good posts & very helpful ,thanks to all :text-goodpost:s
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby PGA » Mon Sep 02, 2019 6:02 pm

Just to "support" what others have said, you will find often the on/off non-set-a-able mode on an air con unit will be set at 24 degrees. I know this as the remote for my downstairs unit was AWOL when I bought my house so I could only switch the unit on/off via a button on the unit itself without the benefit of a remote to change temperature etc - and its set to be 24 all year round on that.

Also, just to add I have a humidity/temperature sensor under my master bed in the villa to be able to remotely keep track on these things (and remotely enable air con/dehumidifiers etc when in the UK). The summer indoor temps with all shutters down are about 29 at the mo - they peaked around 31 during July.
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Re: Air Con Costs of Running and Best Practise?

Postby Ron Hill » Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:17 am

PGA wrote:Just to "support" what others have said, you will find often the on/off non-set-a-able mode on an air con unit will be set at 24 degrees. I know this as the remote for my downstairs unit was AWOL when I bought my house so I could only switch the unit on/off via a button on the unit itself without the benefit of a remote to change temperature etc - and its set to be 24 all year round on that.

Also, just to add I have a humidity/temperature sensor under my master bed in the villa to be able to remotely keep track on these things (and remotely enable air con/dehumidifiers etc when in the UK). The summer indoor temps with all shutters down are about 29 at the mo - they peaked around 31 during July.


Does the one remote not control both units I know mine does
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