I dont' know about the rest of you, but here in NC, we are BROILING this week. Temps are in the triple digits and it's been like this since Sunday/Monday and no relief till Saturday or Sunday. Here is my question:

We have dual A/C's, one for up and one for down. They basically run all day and a bit into the night (hey, the temps last night were still around 90 AFTER dark!). I'm trying not to stress about it, but I've noticed the past couple of days, that the temps are a degree or two higher than what I have it set at. I have them set at 75, but in the late afternoon/evening, I see that the upstairs is at 77 and the downstairs is at 76. Bear in mind, we have a HUGE 2 story open foyer and our house faces west, so we (unfortunately) catch the brunt of the afternoon sun.

DH told me to stop worrying, that the units are not meant to handle this kind of extreme heat, and they're doing all they can to bring the temp down. When I put my hand to the vents, the air coming out DOES feel cool.

Do you think this is common? Should I stop stressing?

Oh, when will cooler weather be here?
Suzanne

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Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. - Lemony Snicket

I would not stress...you set the thermostat at the temp you would LIKE the house. The temp on the thermostat shows you the temp that the AC is able to get your house too. If you are setting your thermostats at 75 and it is 100 outside you may never get to 75. We are broiling as well with temps in the high 90's and heat index of about 110. I have my AC set on 78 and it rarely shuts off and is staying at about 79. Personally if I were you I would kick them both to 78 so that it is not running non-stop. We set ours to 80 at night to give the unit, and our electric bill, a bit of a break.

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I agree. We get the brunt of afternoon sun on our sunroom and I'm glad that the temp gauge isn't in here because it's easily 3 degrees higher than the house. The top story AC is having to work harder than the lower one since heat rises

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The AC units can pull the inside temp down about 15° cooler than the outside temp without running all the time. Our air is running a lot too. I have the thermostat set at 78 until after 9 then it goes to 77. Until it was so hot I had it set to go to 76 in the early morning hours until about 10 in the morning.

It's really hot here too in Virginia. Yesterday it was 104 in the shade here at our house. Since you've got your temperature set on 75, I would think your air conditioning would have to run all the time to keep it that cool in your house.

We have ours set on 77 during the day, keep the blinds closed and ours doesn't run all the time. I know if we kept it on 75, it would run all day. Maybe you might program it to 77 and see what happens.

During the night we have ours programmed to go down to 75 because we like to sleep in a cool house, so it runs it down to 75 and cuts off. I can wake up during the night and usually it's not on.

Looks like everyone's electric bill will be high next time!!

It's 104 here right now. Our air is doing the same thing, pretty much running constantly. It has helped some now that the boys are back in school and not opening and closing the door all day. While no one is here I keep all the drapes shut that seems to help also. I'm really dreading getting our next bill. I'm sure it's going to be sky high.

Laura

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It's 104 here now, and has been for a few hours. Our kids aren't opening and closing the doors, we have all the blinds/curtains closed and have all the doors inside open to encourage air flow.

I have SO had it with summer! I can hardly wait to see what our new payment will be for the power company, when they re-evaluate our usage over the past year.

Suzanne

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Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. - Lemony Snicket

were looking to move to nc too.. I heard you were under a heat warning. I hope all is well for all of you thatt live there.

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It is hot almost everywhere right now! I guess we are all going to pay bigger electric bills this month!

I hope that everyone has changed their filters and cleaned the air conditioner coils. It does help them run better if the air can flow thru them .

DH keeps our unit clean and always trims around ours.
When you mow they do suck up the grass and debree.

I sure hope the heat breaks soon!

You sure you want to move to NC? I'm from Cleveland, OH, originally... Grew up there (N. Ridgeville) and I went to college at Univ. of Akron!

Suzanne

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Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. - Lemony Snicket

lol I'm tired of snow!! I guess I'll be going from one extreme to the other... I went to akron u as well!!

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We have the same setup, 2 units and the sun beats here all day. The air conditioner guy told us that we should never have the temperature INSIDE more than 21 colder than OUTSIDE. It's an air conditioner, not a refrigeration unit. It can not handle running non stop, it's not made to do that.


We turned ours up and put some fans out on the hot days. Also check your filters, maybe they need to be changed or washed?

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OMG, there's no way I would set our thermostats to the low 80's! We'd be dying in here! At least I know I'm not the only one whose A/C units are going full throttle.

Gee, aren't we lucky, though, it'll "only" be an expected high of 95 on Saturday!

Suzanne

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Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. - Lemony Snicket

Dh always says a AC unit is designed to bring it down 20'

Our bill was 316!! and it doesn't include any of these hot days!!!!

2 units and a pool pump.

Upstairs 80
Downstairs 76

That's what he told us, I didn't say I listened to him. DH argues sometimes, but I like it cold in July, sorry, that's why we have AC. Some days it does run all of the time and I do turn it up, just for the sake of the electric bill. We are supposed to get a break here for the next week or so, in the upper 50's or low 60's at night and then under or around 80 during the day, so I might turn everything off for the week. I hope it breaks for you too!

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Oh I hope so, sometimes you have your breathe taken away soon as you open your door to go somewhere ugh

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I'm in VA and we are having the same heat wave! A friend of mine said that she had a friend that her thermostat was reading about 3 or 4 degrees higher than her thermostat was set. I said, OMG....mine is doing the same thing!!! I had noticed it Sunday when I passed by and looked and it read 80 degrees (it was set at 76 degrees). I just figured it had something to do with the extreme temps (our house is only 6 years old so surely the AC is OK!!!!). Sure enough, my friend's friend call her Heating/AC person out to look at her air conditioner and he said that it was A-OK...nothing was wrong with it and that this isn't anything out of the ordinary for this time of year (when it is so drastically hot).

So.....try not to worry! Others, like myself, are having the same issues!!! I am guessing when the heat comes back down, the thermostat will "go back to normal".

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We have a central air situation here, and we made arrangements w/energy provider for *peak hour stuff*.
What that means for us is that every 15 mins. our ac is cycled to be off and on. (We've never noticed when it was on or off) See if your local energy provider has plans likes this.
We are in the TC area of MN, it's been a brutal summer both for gardeners and normal folks here, our fam falls into both categories, and it's been very tough for us here with the high temps and lack of rainfall.
MZ

Wow, reading all your replies about your settings, I feel like an eskimo. We leave ours set at 73 I would sufficate any higher than that. The suns hits us on the front of the house in the morning. (8 windows across the front) and the back of the house in the afternoon (5 windows, skylight, and a sliding glass door) So we get a lot of heat. We built 12 yrs ago, and finally have trees big enough for some shade, and we pull blinds also.

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78 here...except when I get an unexpected flash of heat and I bump it down for awhile. LOL The upstairs will run non-stop in the evening taking several hours to cool down because it's off most of the day.

cj/

OP -- nothing to worry about. it's just too hot for your AC unit to cool any more than it already is.

We have 3 units -- upstairs is set at 76, main floor (master bedroom is on the main floor) is 74 and the basement depends on who sets it (DH & I have temperature wars -- I turn it up, he turns it down). It live in GA and it was 108 here today and I was outside a bit and man it was hot. We haven't had rain in forecver and my poor new sod that was a beautiful green in mid-July from all the rain is now brown <ugh>.

This month will be a double whammy for bills -- water & electric will both be high!!!

Sarah.........mom to Jason & Devin

Sounds like the same problem we are having. We live in NC too and have the same type of house you do. The downstairs temp is fine, but the upstairs struggles and doesn't reach the temp it is set at until after the sun goes down