Talk Quesada forum

Hi all

We have just bought a Villa which most rooms have an air con unit in.

Just trying to gauge how much these units cost to run, any ideas please?
Don't want to get a shock when the bill comes in lol

Also, what is a good temp to run these at so they perform at their best?
Been told not to always run low which seems sensible to be honest

Cheers

Paul

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).

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).

Thank you very much.
I am not sure what we have lol. All i know is there is a unit on the outside of the wall for each unit.

Some are quite old machines.

So, I need to question your temps you mention.
24 to cool and 21 to heat, am i being silly as that seems the wrong way round?

I run my air con on 24 to cool during summer and 20 to heat in winter, it depends how cool or hot you want to be .

jpeg wrote:I run my air con on 24 to cool during summer and 20 to heat in winter

This is doing my head in lol
Why is cooling higher than warming?

No, marcliff is quite correct with the temperatures. We find that it’s impossible to achieve the 16 or 18 degrees that many first timers and guests seem to think it should be set at.

At those low settings, the AC units will work all the time but never achieve the temperature. The only thing you will achieve is the increased profitability of Iberdrola.

A setting of 24 - And in our case 26 in the bedroom - has the AC cycling throughout the night providing a pleasant temperature and keeping costs down. The AC may be set at 24 but to bring the room down to that, it’s pumping out, near freezing, air. This is what cools you down. The 24 setting keeps it economical

Glassfull wrote:No, marcliff is quite correct with the temperatures. We find that it’s impossible to achieve the 16 or 18 degrees that many first timers and guests seem to think it should be set at.

At those low settings, the AC units will work all the time but never achieve the temperature. The only thing you will achieve is the increased profitability of Iberdrola.


A setting of 24 - And in our case 26 in the bedroom - has the AC cycling throughout the night providing a pleasant temperature and keeping costs down

Okay, so it's about the fact it can't get to the temp and keeping costs half decent

Okay, thank you
When i was there last week, i could not wait to put it at 18 lol

Because when its 30 plus outside if you have it too cold firstly you are wasting money but secondly if you have it at say 20 you will feel roasting when you go outside so it's a happy medium you can do whatever you want but what has been said is good advice.

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 just run mine at 23-24 degrees all year.