News Flash: Big houses also cost more to cool

Date:	August 3, 2006 / year-entry #262
Tags:	news-flash;non-computer
Orig Link:	https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060803-26/?p=30243
Comments:	5
Summary:	Perhaps as a counterpart to the fact that big houses have bigger heating bills, NPR yesterday pointed out that bigger houses use more electricity for cooling. (NPR looks not at the "surprise" of big-house owners over the cost of energy, but rather the consequences of these big houses on the energy grid. But the headline...

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Matt says:

August 3, 2006 at 10:15 am

Deja vu

Cody says:

August 3, 2006 at 4:55 pm

I wonder why it is that my girlfriend’s mom has a house that’s about 3000 sq. feet with huge ceilings that’s been at 68 degrees all week while most of them have been away on vacation. It’s inhabited by three cats, my girlfriend (about 8 hours for sleep) and her little sister (slept there, I think, two nights over the last week, mostly at her dad’s otherwise).

The money she spends to cool that place could pay my rent.

Jon says:

August 4, 2006 at 1:18 am

But wait! Big houses are more efficient to cool. Heat loss is a result of surface area which scales to the square, whereas living space is a function of volume, which scales to the cube.

So if people lived together in a big house, energy would be saved.

Billy says:

August 4, 2006 at 9:37 am

I, on the other hand, turned off my AC when I went on vacation. While we were gone we had a HHH streak (thats hot, hazy, humid). When I got back the neighbours told me that my smoke alarms had been going off for 2 days straight. The firefighters and police had been by to check on the house. Their working theory was that the humidity in the house got too high and I should have left the AC on to keep it down. Though to their credit they did say to set it higher than normal 27-28 C (81-84 F).

Stephen Jones says:

August 8, 2006 at 9:30 am

—"Though to their credit they did say to set it higher than normal 27-28 C (81-84 F)."—-

But that is more or less what the normal should be. Maybe a degree or two less if there is really high humidity.

There is nothing stupider than seeing people in Florida wearing jackets and ties because the air-conditioning inside the building is set so high.