For those of you with reverse cycle refrigerated air conditioning...

[Jaycee]

I'm trying to get an idea of the cost of running r/c air conditioning and was wondering if you could answer the following questions for me...

1. How big is your house?

2. How many people live in your house?

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months?

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc)

6. How often do you use your air conditioning?

Thanks so much!

[Beach Mama]

1. How big is your house?
We have an old 3 bedroom weather with a small study, open plan but relatively small ktichen/lounge/dining room.

2. How many people live in your house?
4
3. What is your electricity bill during winter months?
We got a yearly bill and it was around $1400 - so VERY reasonable as we had the a/c on any day over 27ish because the house heats up so fast being old. Had it on overnight and I am home 5 days a week and hate being cold so the heating is also on from 7am til I go to bed around 9pm throughout winter, some of spring and autumn.

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?
As above!
5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc) Nope none of those.

6. How often do you use your air conditioning?
HEEPS! and I was a bit scared of the bill but it really hasn't been that bad. I think the little old cr@ppy a/c we had at our old place chewed through more power than this one. Heehee!


Had to add - totally worth the $$ putting it in and I would pay more in pwoer bills as it is just so nice to be COOL on really really hot days and to be able to sleep on those revolting nights.

[Jaycee]

Thanks for your reply Tanstar

Is your a/c ducted or a split system?

[Nelle]

I am not going to be very helpful here, because I am the maths-challenged one in our house so don't handle the bills.

I can tell you (because we only got AC last summer), that apparently it's best to err on the side of a big air conditioner, because a large air con won't have to work as hard as a smaller one. Like, to maintain 24deg inside a smaller air con would have to work harder, and therefore use more energy.

We have a 3 bedroom, one study, open plan sort of house and the one unit cools the whole house, the air flows from our rumpus (we direct the air that way) through the kitchen/dining, and from there it makes its way to the front lounge and cools our bedroom a bit. The hallway to the boys room comes off the kitchen/dining, and usually we just use a fan in their doorway to pull the cooler air in a bit. They sleep happily without blankets and clothes on the hot nights though, and enough cold air does get down to make things comfy for them.

I think with efficiency, it's apparently better to turn the a/c on before the house gets hot (probably a no brainer for many) - and I think every degree under 21(?) gets more and more exy. But I think (this is just from listening not very well to DH), that it's cheaper to run the air con most of the day at 25, than to turn it on at 20 when you start to feel hot. I think.

I don't think it has been outrageously expensive. Having said that, he is the one who feels the need for the air con more, so he is more likely to stay quiet about the cost.

There are heaps of things you can do to ease the air con's load as well, like making sure all windows are shut, closing curtains when you can, planting trees/shading north and west facing windows if you don't have good eaves, good insulation, turning it on early, closing doors to rooms you don't need cooled.

Anyway. Probably all of that is common sense or not useful to you, but DH went through a phase of figuring out what would be most economical and talked about it for ages, so I may as well pass on the little I absorbed.

[Jaycee]

Not useless information at all Nelle, thanks so much for that, especially about going for a larger unit over a smaller one, I'll definitely keep that in mind

[Astrolady]

We're just ringing around now and getting quotes for split systems. So I can't help you at all LOL. We are opting for 2 a smaller one and a larger one. Our bedroom gets extremely hot, so we are looking into a 1.5hp split on the lounge room wall facing our bedroom door. We are then looking at a 2.5hp split in our open plane family/kitchen/dining area and keeping the boys doors open so cool air can drift in there.

[Tinks]

I'm trying to get an idea of the cost of running r/c air conditioning and was wondering if you could answer the following questions for me...

1. How big is your house?

3 bedroom 2 bathroom and 2 living areas. It's a very long ranch style house.

2. How many people live in your house?

5

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months?

Usually just under $300

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?

Around the same

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc)

We have a dryer wich we use every day

6. How often do you use your air conditioning?

In winter we have the heater on in the mornings and evenings if the fire is out when we wake up/get home. If we have no wood we have the split system going 24/7.

In summer we use it pretty much every day over 30. When it's really hot we have it going overnight too.

[Beach Mama]

Ours is ducted heating and refrigerated ducted cooling both of which run on electricity. We just got 3 mthly bill that was $850, that is with running the heating all day every day over winter and it's been a long cold one. I had it on just a week ago. I thought it was rather high. When we had gas ducted heating it was around $400 plus electricity so it's probably not that bad maybe $100 more for the quarter.

[Visitor7]

We have a/c, not ducted though. So not sure if this will help. Like Nelle has said, running your a/c at 25 degrees is best. Have a look at your energy's suppliers website. They'll have handy hints for using a/c's.

1. How big is your house?

4 bedroom 2 bathroom and 2 living areas. We have split system air cons in every room of the house.

2. How many people live in your house?

5

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months?

around $300

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?

$700

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc)

We have a pool which is on a cheaper tariff. It only costs around $40 per quarter to run.

6. How often do you use your air conditioning?

None at all during winter.
During summer, the girls air con goes on when they have a sleep, and the split system in one of the lounge room is one most of the day.
We have all brm air cons running at night.

[Jaycee]

Jodi, that's the other option I'm looking at - putting 3 split systems through the house. Did you install them yourself or were they already in the house when you moved in?

Thanks everyone for your replies!

[Enchanted]

We have ducted and love it. The house isn't cold but keeps it MUCH cooler and is so much cheaper to run than our old split systems.

1. How big is your house? 3BR, 1 bath, 2 living areas.

2. How many people live in your house? 4 peeps!

3. What is your electricity bill during winter months? $500

4. What is your electricity bill during summer months?$400

5. Do you have any big electricity "suckers" (pool, spa, excessive use of dryer etc) We have 3 fridges a freezer, an LCD and a plasma. So I assume they all use a bit.

6. How often do you use your air conditioning? In summer usually everyday and we have it running all day everyday. I was scared to get our bill last summer but it was so cheap compared to what I thought it would have been! We have ducted heating too and we run it all day and just turn it down at night. So the bills have been pretty good.

[Beach Mama]

We were originally looking at getting the split systems, best thing you can do is get a good company out to have a look at the layout of your house and see what will suit best. 3 large systems that would cool most but not all of our house installed was going to be around $8000 and the refridgerated was $10 so we felt for the extra 2k that it would be better to have the whole house cool when we want it. I slept with a doona for most of summer last year!

[Visitor7]

Jodi, that's the other option I'm looking at - putting 3 split systems through the house. Did you install them yourself or were they already in the house when you moved in?

Thanks everyone for your replies!

They were already installed, but when we bought the house (5 years ago now) we had an air con dude look at them to make sure they were the best air cons for the house, which they were.

[BeautifulMadness]

geeee my bill during is $600 and thats with a gas heater lol

i ammmm soooooodesperate tp get a spil system...we have a portable one but i think that uses alot of power up