4 ms·
Seems silly but I’d imagine a lot of places could use the lower rates during peak solar to precool the buildings. My house only heats up about two degrees per
by mrfusion 7y ago
Seems silly but I’d imagine a lot of places could use the lower rates during peak solar to precool the buildings.
My house only heats up about two degrees per hour with the ac off. In theory I could precool by ten degrees and coast until the evening.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoDo you live in east/mid Texas? That sounds like some super great insulation if you are only accumulating 2 degrees an hour during a hot humid Texas summer.
- mrfusion 7y agoSimilar latitude actually. My house is concrete block though so it tends to resist temperature change a bit. Also keep in mind large buildings will resist temperature changes even better than houses due to their size. Less surface area per volume.
- vonmoltke 7y agoMy house in Dallas only rose by about one degree per hour during the day when the A/C was off, even on the hottest days. It was pretty well-insulated, and the large trees around it helped. > humid Texas summer This is probably the warped idea of "humid" I got from growing up in South Florida, but Dallas was rarely ever humid.
- humanrebar 7y agoDallas is relatively humid, but not Florida, no. It also doesn't have the constant sea breezes and incidental rain that most of Florida enjoys.
- shliachtx 7y agoHouston is as humid as it gets though.
- londons_explore 7y agoBuild your houses out of stone rather than wood, and they'll have a 10+ tonne thermal mass. Just a few inches of insulation around that on all sides, and the temperature barely varies day to night.
- abootstrapper 7y agoOur house went from 78 to 85 in 48 hours with the AC completely off. With highs over 100. We have an old house with basic insulation upgrades.
- m463 7y agoI'd expect it is a combination of insulation and thermal mass.
- mcv 7y agoGood insulation is a great investment for any home. Keeps your house cooler in summer, warmer in winter, dramatically reducing your energy needs in both cases.
- michaelbuckbee 7y agoDo any of the smart thermostats have this function (tying in with rates?)
- abootstrapper 7y agoYes they do. Austin Energy has the Rush Hour rebate program that precools your house before peak demand. It’s compatible with several programmable thermostats. It’s an opt-in program and you can override your thermostat if you want. Austin’s rates don’t change with demand, but they are tiered and increase the more electricity you use per month.
- ceejayoz 7y agoMy Nest is signed up with my local power provider. In the summer, they turn up my temp a couple degrees from 2-6pm a couple times a month. There's a pre-cool from 1-2 where they drop the temp, and if I leave it alone for the entire four hours, I get $5 off my power bill that month.
- mjn 7y agoMy parents (who live in Texas) get a rebate like this from their electricity company, which surprised me by even having an option to do it manually without a Nest-style internet-connected thermostat. If it's a day that the company wants reduced peak usage, they text+email you that you can get a rebate if you reduce usage during a certain set of hours. They judge whether you did or not by measuring your usage during those hours against your historical usage on similar-temperature days, so you can get the credit just by turning up your thermostat manually for a few hours. (This does require a new-style meter that reports hourly usage.)
- ip26 7y agoTime of use rates will even get the residents to do it (precool) themselves.