> change your thermostat setting to 78°
Yeah, I can't take this guy seriously.
Yeah, I can't take this guy seriously.
Reportedly, six power plants were offline, accounting for "roughly 2,900 megawatts of electricity — or enough to power nearly 600,000 homes".
Massive demand combined with substantial supply reduction is generally bad news.
Not trying to save money or anything. Genuinely 78 + ceiling fan on low is most comfortable for me. Maybe it's the low humidity?
Some of it is certainly just tolerance or whether or not you're acclimated (heh) to it.
The AC removes the humidity when the AC runs.
But if you set your thermostat to 75F (24C), and your in-door air temperature is ≤75F with a humidity of 80%, the AC will do nothing for you because the temperature is "correct".
One needs a separate, stand alone dehumidifier with a hygrometer to deal with humidify independently of temperature.
Do a search for "whole house dehumidifier" for available products.
The situation you're describing can come up occasionally on mild days, but (unfortunately) Texas doesn't have many of those. It tends to go almost straight from winter to summer and vice versa.
On the rare occasion when I feel that it's too humid inside (a rainy day in spring or fall), I just turn on the AC for half an hour. It wouldn't be worth it to have a separate system for that.
Which will never ever happen during the daytime in Texas in the summer.
70 degrees F is my most comfortable indoor temp, and I try to let it go down to the 65-68 range in my bedroom for sleeping. This was true even when I lived in Los Angeles.
78 is uncomfortably hot even for lying around naked. 68 is far better for ordinary attire and activity.
My thermostat is set to 77° year round. It stays comfortable inside my house here in NTx near DFW. The temperature varies between 76-78° all day long. I have found that the AC runs about 20-30 minutes to get that 2° drop every other hour or so and it is pretty easy to achieve no matter the outside temperature.
If I still lived near Houston with the higher humidity and all the general suck I would probably do it differently but up here this works great. I can work outside in the heat and humidity, step inside for a break every hour or so and go back outside and it feels like I stepped into a cave while I'm inside.
I can't imagine not running AC, if only for its dehumidifying effects, in a Houston summer.
It was more of an eye-roll at the idea that covid made demand impossible to understand.
78 is quite comfortable during the day, especially if you spend even 5 minutes outside for any reason. When you come inside 78 will feel quite cool under your ceiling fan.
Why would you even believe or say something like that?
Also, when you reach 100F+ outside, you have pretty dehumidified indoor air at 78F because it still takes the AC running a lot.
I wont turn air conditioning on until mid 90s, and then it gets set to 89F or so.
As far as I can see, the rest of the world isn't furry enough to live the way they do. Humans are far too fond of their clothes.
I’m in Eastern Europe and my thermostat is usually set between 18 and 20°C (64-68°F)
I can’t imagine sitting in 25°C all day long.
That's very cold. In Texas that would consume an absolutely enormous amount of energy, since it's so hot and (in some areas) humid. Houston, for example, averages 3 months with highs at or above 32 C (90 F).
That's bad for the grid and bad for the planet.
It'd be interesting to see survey data of how people configure these things.
Triple digits and high humidity are the norm for some parts of summer in some parts of Texas. No, opening a window isn't a fix.
By the time I was a teenager we had moved into a house with window units for AC and central heating.
Anything is doable if you are prepared. I suspect a lot of people today have become acclimated to an unnaturally limited temperature range and therefore they can't handle being outside all day in the direct sun without needing a way to cool down. Same thing in winter. People have acclimated to a range of 65-80 and anything outside that range requires different clothing, moving chilled or heated air, etc.
Except for that one day when the AC didn't work in my hotel room. That was a bit of a nightmare.
So if I have to spend a day outside, I'd prefer 32C in Miami over 8C, despite the fact that it's easier to mitigate against cold weather (just dress warmer)
> The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language identifies room temperature as around 20–22 °C (68–72 °F),[1] while the Oxford English Dictionary states that it is "conventionally taken as about 20 °C (68 °F)".[2] The ideal room temperature may vary by place and culture; studies from Nigeria show a comfortable temperature range of 26–28 °C (79–82 °F), comfortably cool 24–26 °C (75–79 °F) and comfortably warm 28–30 °C (82–86 °F).[3] Owing to variations in humidity and (likely) clothing, recommendations for summer and winter may vary; a suggested typical range for winter is 23–25.5 °C (73–78 °F), with that for summer being 20–23.5 °C (68–74 °F).[4] Some studies have suggested that thermal comfort preferences of men and women may differ significantly, with women on average preferring higher ambient temperatures.[5][6][7]
> The World Health Organization in 1987 found that comfortable indoor temperatures between 18–24 °C (64–75 °F) were not associated with health risks for healthy adults with appropriate clothing, humidity, and other factors. For infants, elderly, and those with significant health problems, a minimum 20 °C (68 °F) was recommended. Temperatures lower than 16 °C (61 °F) with humidity above 65% were associated with respiratory hazards including allergies.[9][10]