On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 8, 2:24*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"Hell Toupee" wrote in message

It's called a SaverSwitch by my utility company. They come out and add it
to the a/c unit, in exchange for giving the customer a 15% discount on
their monthly electric bill. The utility remotely controls it - during
peak load times (which are only an occasional thing hereabouts) they turn
off the a/c's compressor every twenty minutes or so, leaving the fan
running to circulate air in the house.

They claim that most people will typically notice little or no difference,
comfort-wise, when this is done. However, my sister has a 4-level home and
when she was on the program, her upper levels simply never had a chance to
cool down sufficiently, so she had them remove the switch.

I can see that system working, based on my own experience with AC. *Short
down times are not a big deal. *Many people keep the house cooler than it
has to be and a brief time down makes no discernable difference.

Recently, on a pretty hot day, there was a quick power outage. *My AC went
off, came back on but not in the "cool" position. *It took about an hour
before I finally noticed that it was getting overly warm. *If the power
company has shut it down for five of twenty minutes, I never would have
noticed.

In the case of your sister's house, the system is either not sized properly,
not laid out properly, or not installed properly. *The technology to have a
well balanced system has been around for decades. Unfortunately, things like
this happen.

I don;t know about that. An AC system is supposed to
be sized so that it runs most of the time on the hottest
days. If the power company then turns it off so it can't
run as much as it needs to, it seems perfectly possible
that some people could wind up with homes that are
too hot.

Another way of looking at it is this. The power companies
claim that it makes no difference in the temp in your
house. If that's the case, what good does it do the
power company? All the AC units out there are already
either randomly cycling because they can maintain the
set temp or else just running all the time. If they are
randomly cycling, then how do you reduce the load
to the power company without reducing the cooling?
If the ACs were all coming on and off at exactly the same
time, then by fooling with then, the power company
could even it out. But because they are already random,
I don't see what they are doing having any effect unless
it raises the temp in the house. And if the AC is running
100%, then for sure turning it off for 10 mins is going
to decrease the cooling output.

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

And if it starts doing that, if you have a multi-story home
with a single system, I would think it could easily effect
the upper levels to an unacceptable level.

Or any unbalanced system. I have an issue between my bedrooms and family
room. The air handler is above the bedrooms and the family room is 50' away,
with a too small (I think) diameter duct between. The return is also in the
wrong place, I think, but that's a done deal.