Sorry, but 45 minutes would be a joke for me. That might bring the temp
down only 2 degrees.
As I mentioned, it took 3 hours to bring the temperature down to 'livable'
conditions.

Walter
"JimL" wrote in message
...

I saved about 25 percent of my summer electric bill when I used set
back during the day. That's a huge savings when you are talking
about $400 electric bills.

It started when I bought a digital thermostat that allowed me to
easily control my AC.

We like 74 for sleeping, 78 up until bedtime and 86 setback when we
are not home.

Huge savings. Don't listen to those that say otherwise. They are
lying thru their teeth.

The only other advice I can offer is that it takes about 45 minutes
to make the house livable, so use your digital thermostat to start
cooling 45 minutes before you get home from work.






On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:04:18 -0400, "Walter Cohen"
wrote:

Hello.
I live in NY.

I am wondering if it is better to leave a central a/c unit running during
the day when no one is home, either at the normal temperature or at a few
degrees warmer -or- use a set-back thermometer when leaving for work in
the
morning and have the A/C unit start up again an hour or 2 before coming
home
later in the afternoon?

I use a set-back thermometer and it takes my unit 3 hours of continuous
operation to bring the temperature down 8 degrees.

Some people have told me that it makes more sense, energy wise and cost
wise, to not set the thermostat warmer in the morning and have the unit
struggle for hours on end in the afternoon trying to get back to the
original comfortable temperature. Instead they say to leave the A/C on as
it would probably cost the same if not less to periodically cool an
already
cool house instead of cooling a house that is not cool at all.
Con Edison says to turn off the A/C when no one is home but I think they
refer to window units (as they also say to turn the AC back on again via
auto-timer a half hour before returning - a half hour would do nothing for
me)

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Walter