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Comment by ParksNet | Hacker News Reader

ProTip: Run your AC hard overnight, when temperatures are in the low 70s, and use your house as a thermal battery (assuming its reasonably insulated).

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How well insulated are California houses built before, say, 1990?

I live up north now where insulation is a given, but when I lived in Louisiana, the houses were made from sticks. High ceilings, but no insulation anywhere.

People think you only need insulation in cold climates when in reality AC is often more expensive and energy intensive than heating.

You can also keep heat out with an IR reflector.

Heating in cold locations consumes much more energy than AC in warm locations:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014...

"Energy demand for climate control was analyzed for Miami (the warmest large metropolitan area in the US) and Minneapolis (the coldest large metropolitan area). ... The results indicate that climate control in Minneapolis is about 3.5 times as energy demanding as in Miami."

I don't know where that guy lived in Louisiana, but I currently live there and insulation is a thing. Weather-proofing is a thing. However, there is very little you can do that will last long against 6 foot water and sustained 100mph winds.

I was in NOLA. Might have just been the age of places I lived, but walls and roof were substantially thinner than I'm accustomed to and bottom floor had open-air crawl spaces underneath (necessitating dripping faucets so pipes don't freeze).

To be fair, NOLA can be a mixed bag. There are a bunch of really old houses that no one wants to tear down and no one has the money to update.

Seems like it would be a lot more efficient to just blow in a bunch of outside air when its cool outside.

Depends on if temperatures drop below 70 outside.

If you're near the coast, open all windows at night when temps are low, and let the house get as cold as possible during the night.

In the morning, close all windows and cover them with blinds, and turn the A/C off during the hottest part of the day.

Don't open the fridge or freezer if possible, and keep lights off.

Both, really. Normalize first with the ambient temperature and then run the AC to sub ambient down towards the 60s.

AC efficiency increases as temperature decreases.

You would have to deal with the fact that your house is now frigidly cold. Also, I can’t remember the last house I lived in California that had decent insulation - so that’s a major assumption.

The fact that this has to be done is sad.

This is like saying "get to the breadlines early to be able to get your bread for the week"

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