There’s a new type of window air conditioner out on the market today that has a unique ‘energy saver’ feature. Once selected, your window a/c works almost as central air conditioning units do. That is, they get the interior rooms down to the temperature you’ve selected, then shut down (thus not using any more electricity). Once the temp in the room rises by at least 2 points higher than what you’ve pre-set, the unit kicks on again, gets the temp down and then shuts off again. This is a great way to save on electricity.

This is the 6000 BTU energy saver a/c unit we have installed in our living room window.

Our old unit model was 8,000 BTUs. But thanks in part to this new energy saver model we purchased AND the fact that our 1120 sq ft home is well built and well insulated (it’s a modular unit) we were able to efficiently cool our home with a 6,000 BTU model, thus saving us even more money on energy costs.

We also have a much smaller window unit installed in our bedroom (4,000 BTUs). We use this model in two ways: either as an accomplice to our living room unit OR we shut off the living room unit completly, close our bedroom door and solely use the smaller unit at night while watching TV in the evening or for sleep. Lately, however, I learned that once the living room unit gets the main part of the home cooled, it basically ‘shuts down’ overnight, uses no electricity yet keeps the interior humidity free.

Here’s our bedroom window 4,000 BTU a/c. It runs and runs and runs switching the compressor on and off.

Humidity is the real culprit during the summer. Not so much the higher temps. Since temps at night can go as low as 60Fdegrees outside here, we’ve been able to shut our bedroom door, turn off our bedroom a/c and open the windows. Combined with our ceiling fan, the dual makes sleep quite comfortable. The rest of the house remains humidity-free all the while we’re NOT using any electricity at all!

Our energy usages is ALWAYS under estimations. In the end we spend about $2.60 a day on electricity.
We like to keep a constant 75Fdegrees interior read in the summer, which comes in handy when temps outside soar above 90F. In other words, we don’t suffer BUT we don’t pay either.

Of course, I’m a fanatic when it comes to turning off the lights, shutting all appliances off (including the computer at night) as well as replacing all interior and exterior light bulbs with LED varieties. I keep all our electricity usages down and all our electric bills low, while enjoying a retirement that’s as comfortable as possible.