5 ms·

AC also uses significantly less electricity and fossil fuels than Heating during the winter.

ljf 7y ago
Sounds interesting - do you have a source for that? I guess that would be country /location specific? Here in the UK most people use zero energy for aircon, and loads fo heating - but I'm sure in most of the world this would be inverse.
- drak0n1c 7y ago
  Here's a breakdown from 2007: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13941744 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=139417... More in-depth analysis: http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Position_Paper_and_apndx_031710.pdf http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Posit... In general, it appears that it's slightly better for carbon emissions to live in a warmer area with regular AC than it is to live in a humid temperate area that requires both heat half the year and AC the other half, or a cold area that requires heat most of the year.
  - fuzzfactor 7y ago
    According to Figure 2 of the GHP paper that must be why Daytona would be preferable to Birmingham or Dallas if you wanted to minimize overall energy use by focusing on AC alone, using little or none during the warmer months. A basic rule of thumb is that it takes enough natural gas to heat three homes in order to produce the electricity to heat only one home. Also that it takes about 3kWh of electricity for an AC unit to cool off the heat produced by 1kWh of electrical appliances or other heat sources.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  An air conditioner is just a heat pump running in reverse (basically). Heat pumps have efficiency >100%, while electric heating is 99.9% efficient and other forms (natural gas, wood, etc.) are significantly less efficient. Logically, then, it is more efficient to cool a room each degree than it is to heat it.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    No, an air conditioner is just a heat pump pumping heat from inside the house to outside. That doesn’t change the efficiency, it’s still greater than 1. The efficiency difference is because the required temperature differential typically is much bigger for heating than cooling.
deleted 7y ago
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ljf 7y ago

Sounds interesting - do you have a source for that? I guess that would be country /location specific? Here in the UK most people use zero energy for aircon, and loads fo heating - but I'm sure in most of the world this would be inverse.

drak0n1c 7y ago
Here's a breakdown from 2007: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13941744 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=139417... More in-depth analysis: http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Position_Paper_and_apndx_031710.pdf http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/assets/1/Page/GHP_Posit... In general, it appears that it's slightly better for carbon emissions to live in a warmer area with regular AC than it is to live in a humid temperate area that requires both heat half the year and AC the other half, or a cold area that requires heat most of the year.
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  According to Figure 2 of the GHP paper that must be why Daytona would be preferable to Birmingham or Dallas if you wanted to minimize overall energy use by focusing on AC alone, using little or none during the warmer months. A basic rule of thumb is that it takes enough natural gas to heat three homes in order to produce the electricity to heat only one home. Also that it takes about 3kWh of electricity for an AC unit to cool off the heat produced by 1kWh of electrical appliances or other heat sources.
frosted-flakes 7y ago
An air conditioner is just a heat pump running in reverse (basically). Heat pumps have efficiency >100%, while electric heating is 99.9% efficient and other forms (natural gas, wood, etc.) are significantly less efficient. Logically, then, it is more efficient to cool a room each degree than it is to heat it.
- rayiner 7y ago
  No, an air conditioner is just a heat pump pumping heat from inside the house to outside. That doesn’t change the efficiency, it’s still greater than 1. The efficiency difference is because the required temperature differential typically is much bigger for heating than cooling.

deleted 7y ago

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