Have you ever done this?   Did it save you money on air conditioning? We have window air conditioners, but have not put them in yet. We have found that by running the furnace fan and the ceiling fans that our house will stay around 80 (at most) even when it's 90 degrees outside. The only thing is that it seems to be eating more electricity than I thought it would. I was hoping to keep our electric bills down this summer. We have never run the furnace around the clock before and this month we had our lowest bill in years. I do turn the fan off when we have a cool spell, but when it's 90+ during the day and the lows at night are in the low 70s we need some extra help. We do have cooler weather on the way though and the day time highs should be 70 - 80 degrees with lows in the low 60s to 50s. As far as I am concerned those are the best temps in the world for energy efficiency. Thanks for your comments.

Kathy

It can work to move the air around but how much it helps depends on the difference between the inside and outside temperatures and the type of construction your home has (wood or brick) and whether the home is shaded by trees. If you open windows at night when it's cooler then shut them in the morning that can help. If the home is brick it will take longer to warm up those heavy bricks and the home will stay cooler longer, but will also take longer to cool off in the evening. Shade helps a lot, but that's a 20 year project to arrange unless you can afford to have mature trees planted!

We do use our furnace fan to cool the house instead of running our central AC--if we can stand it. We are using our furnace fan today. So far, we haven't hit the 90s too hard and today will be about 82 so we will either have windows open or run the furnace fan and ceiling fans. We have found this costs less than running our central air. However, if the furnace fan runs all day long, it could possibly be cheaper to turn on the AC. Since we have central AC and a thermostat, I set it at 80 or 82 and the AC only runs when needed. 

When it gets too hot, we sometimes close up the house, turn on the AC for 20 minutes and then shut it off and run our ceiling fans. This is usually about 5:00 in the afternoon--when we all get home. We also may run it about 20 minutes before bedtime to cool us down to sleep. If we can cool the house off a bit before evening, then we don't have to keep the AC on all the time.

I'm sure there is a way or a website that will calculate the cost of running ac for short periods of time versus a furnace fan on all the time.

Walt, our house is stick built, but we have a few trees. Just not on the south west side of the house. Still, our bedroom isn't too bad for sleeping as we keep the shades pulled and curtains closed all day and open when weather permits and air is cooler outside than in at night.

Mamasjob, That's what I was wondering. Last year our highest electric bill for the hot month of August was $157.00. We ran for window units last year, but we had someone else living with us last year and they stayed upstairs. This year nobody extra in the house and we don't need to run air upstairs unless we decide to go up there to watch TV. Even then it isn't that bad as long as it is closed up. We also find that the air from the basement is cooler and it gets pulled upstairs when we run the furnace fan. It actually feels like we have central air sometimes. LOL Fortunately we don't live in a real hot zone, but the weather has been so crazy all year and we are worried about how high the temps will go and for how long. To me it would be nice to not have to run the A/C. but like I said, we don't have central air. Those air conditioners are nice to have, but they are heavy and we just don't like air conditioning if we can help it.

hi, i was wondering can you do that with a hot water furnace?

we have done that before in other houses. It did run the electricity up though.

Our whole house fan run during the night does a better job.

When we had central air, we had it set to go on in early May and go off late September. It was a complete climate control that way, and we never had allergy or sinus problems. I think we had it set at 75 degrees. It is harder on a/c equipment to make up a temperature difference at 90 degrees than it is to have it set and kept on all season. It rarely ran that way.

AND I didn't suffer from these blasted allergies. I miss it.

Hi there.  New here.  I got on a search to find out if there was another way to use the box fans I've got for cooling our home.  Normally, our June bill is nearing $300 and I've got a call into our friend who owns a heating/refrigeration co. to come work on the a/c which has undoubtedly frozen up by now.  I just opened our bill and it's $130.99!  I'm so psyched! 

This year, when we did run the a/c in May and early June I set it at 74 in the daytime and 76 at night and it was very comfy.  I even had to put on a sweater in the daytime periodically which is normal for me as I tend to be chilled easily.  When I saw the weather trend going down into the 80's I made the decision to break out the window fans and keep the ceiling fans going in every room with all the windows open. 

As I was reading through the thread I was thrilled to find others who are trying to save money in the smallest of ways like me.  These small things add up definitely!  I'm getting a few more box fans for windows this weekend. 

I think part of our upside is drying all laundry outside, using cold water on all loads except whites, running the pool filter 2 hours instead of constantly, and basic turning lights off where unneccessary. 

Kudos!  to all of you! 

Lady 

 

btw, I forgot to add, I don't use the central air to cool the  house b/c it uses more electricity than what I'm currently doing and the air is not as cool---not by a long shot.  Our home stays a comfortable 74-78 with the outside nearing upper 80's and into the 90's the past 3 weeks. 

We do have the added advantage of 8 mature water maples surrounding our home though. 

kabin:

... We also find that the air from the basement is cooler and it gets pulled upstairs when we run the furnace fan. It actually feels like we have central air sometimes. LOL

We've never tried the furnace fan... In the past month with the wind we were having, I opened up our storm doors in the basement and our upstairs door going down to the basement.  Also I closed most of the windows to keep the heat out.  The cool are came blowing up, and yeah, it almost made the house feel like the A/C was on!  Gee, it only took me 10 years to figure that out!

On not so windy days, I've put a small fan at the bottom of the basement step (pointed up the stairs) to help push some of the cool air up.

Welcome LadyLiberty!