A Pilgrim’s Digression

I am going to raise a question that will hopefully spark a little debate. As most of you know, I rent a room in the home of an elderly lady where I live for the three days a week I work in Washington. This week, her son installed my air conditioner, a brand new window unit that cools the room down marvelously. Now for the question:

Is it more energy efficient to leave the AC on low while I am at work, or should I turn it off?

I ask because I have been leaving it on, but my landlady (or her daughter, who also lives in the home) comes into my room and turns it off while I am at work.

Now, I admit there is a selfish component to this question. I want to leave the AC on during the day so that when I come home from work, I have a pleasant, cool room in which to relax. Instead, when I come home the room is sweltering, and there is only one window I can open and it’s plugged by the turned off air conditioner.

The house does not have central air, and there are air conditioners only in the bedrooms. The windows are never opened. In fact most of the windows, including one in my room, cannot be opened at all, even if I wanted to.  So it’s not like I can relax somewhere else while my room cools down.

But I realize I don’t pay the energy bill. Therefore this AC thing is something I am going to have to live with. I suspect it is the old woman’s daughter who is turning off the AC, because I’ve never had this problem before, and the daughter only just moved in a few weeks ago. However, again I don’t pay the bill, my rent is very low ($250 per month), and I am resigned to living with it.

I just want to know, for my own satisfaction, who do you think is right? Does it cost more to leave the AC on but set to Low, or does it cost more to turn it off, then re-cool the room when I come home from work? Keep in mind it takes at least four hours of cooling before the room is comfortable, yet still not fully cooled. The furniture and walls in the room literally seems to absorb the heat, then radiate it back into the room for hours after I come home.

I’ve had this same debate with my family. My grandparents, who have central air, are notorious among the younger generation in my family for leaving the AC off during the day, then turning it on in the evening after the house has built up a substantial amount of heat. Then at some point in the early morning, they get up and turn it off again and open windows.

I’ve spent the night at their house and gone to bed with the AC on, but woke up in the morning sweating because one of them has turned the AC off during the night.

My Mom is even worse. She rarely even turns the AC on because in her opinion, “it makes the heat feel worse when you go outside.” Money isn’t really the issue, because she’s on a budget plan with her electric company. What’s more, she doesn’t even run the AC in her car! She just has a prejudice against running the AC.

My opinion is that some people from previous generations have this attitude towards AC that it is somehow sinful to be comfortable. I think they take pride in suffering in the heat. For others, perhaps they disdain AC because of the purported environmental impact; thus they suffer for the environment.

I don’t know the reason why. I just want to know whether I am right in wanting to leave my AC in my room during the workday. I turn it off on Thursday morning, as I did today, since I am not coming back until Monday night; therefore I don’t totally disregard energy conservation.

It would just be really sweet to come home to a cool bedroom after a tiring day of work.