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Heating & Air Conditioning

marital disagreement re open windows with a/c

16 years ago

OK, temperatures are rising in this house and it's not even that hot out! We have a three story house on an island and it's regularly quite humid out. I've always been 'in charge' of the a/c as hubby was only out on weekends. He's now retired and, well... We have two heat zones and central ac which we only use when it's quite hot. We have an open staircase that runs from the first to the third flood. I say that when we use the ac, we should close all windows and turn on both units, even if we leave the top floor temp relatively high (this floor isn't used much.) He says we should turn on only the ac on the bottom two floors and leave the top floor windows open so it will stay relatively cool. The thought of this gives me hives as I think that the ac would then struggle to eliminate humidity that would come in through any open windows. My uneducated impulse is that it's either windows closed/ac on or windows open/ac off, but all or nothing either way. Anyone with opinions on this?

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Comments (6)

don21
16 years ago
Your husband is not only getting older . . . . he's getting senile too!

Don
daddo
16 years ago
Your analogy is correct. The latent load (heat in humidity) must be overcome.
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garyg
16 years ago
You are correct young lady, but be nice to your husband. We guys don't like to be wrong so don't be too hard on your man.

Good luck.
mskathyny
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you for your sympathetic responses. (Don, I hope you're wrong!) Daddo: Just as I'd thought! So we'll close the windows and I'll be graceful about it, following your advice, garyg.
deweymn
16 years ago
Hot air rises, cool air settles. That is a law of physics.

Open staircase for three floors sounds like a chimney effect to me. The hot air will rise to the seldom used third floor which doesn't need the a/c on if no one is there to benefit from it? So, try an experiment. Open some windows up there (keep the old one happy) and see if the hot air doesn't rise and exit thru the open windows.

Ok, some moisture will come in and the lower unit will have to remove it. Big deal. I guess that you can afford the extra $ this will cost. Set the lower unit tstat at a comfortable setting and see what happens.
don21
16 years ago
To allow any heat at all to go out the open upstairs window, you would need an open downstairs window to create the draft. The heat and humidity coming in the downstairs window would cost you more to remove (using the air conditioning system) than if you kept the house buttoned up tight and let the air conditioner 'work on' the trapped air inside, gradually lowering it's temp and humidity

So, if the 'argument' is about maintaining the lowest cooling bills - CLOSE ALL THE WINDOWS!!

Don

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