Summer is officially here and many Americans are looking for ways to stay cool without racking up a costly energy bill.
VERIFY viewer Nancy wants to know if turning off the air conditioner when she’s not at home during the day and then turning it back on when she gets back would help her save money and give the A/C unit a break.
THE QUESTION
Will turning off your air conditioner when you leave home during the day save you money?
THE SOURCES
- Energy Saver, a federal consumer resource for saving energy at home
- Francisco Chavez, residential service manager at Lochridge-Priest, Inc.
- Arcadio Padilla, energy efficiency complex issue supervisor at Reliant Energy
- Logan Kureczka, lead communications consultant at Duke Energy
THE ANSWER
No, turning off your air conditioner when you leave home during the day will not save you money.
WHAT WE FOUND
Turning your air conditioner off when you are not home during the day will not save you money on your power bill. Instead, our sources say you should leave your A/C on to avoid putting a strain on the unit during the summer.
“If you are leaving home just for the day, it is definitely more energy-efficient to keep it turned on,” Logan Kureczka, the lead communications consultant at Duke Energy, told VERIFY. “Just turn it up a few degrees higher than you would if you were home.”
Francisco Chavez, the residential service manager at Lochridge-Priest, Inc., does not recommend turning the A/C off because he says the system will run harder when it gets turned back on.
“So if you turn your thermostat off between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., and then you get home from work and then you’re asking it to get down to 72° from 80°, it's gonna run nonstop and it's gonna be harder on the system to try and catch up than it is to maintain say 74° all day,” Chavez said.
Not only will turning your A/C off during the day be harder on the system, but it will also be harder on you as a homeowner, according to Arcadio Padilla, the energy efficiency complex issue supervisor at Reliant Energy.
“Let's say I'm gone all day, and I turn it completely off. It’s gonna be blistering hot inside by the time I get home, especially because of how hot it is,” Padilla said. “Will my unit run? Yes. And will it struggle to keep up? Absolutely.”
Padilla says taking precautions for your home is crucial as we brace for the summer heat. He also recommends increasing your thermostat setting by four degrees if you plan to leave home for more than four hours. That way it will cool down efficiently when you return while also preventing humidity and moisture from building up. He also shared other ways to beat the heat.
“Make sure your filters are changed regularly — your unit is serviced regularly. Make sure your thermostat is accurate. Change the batteries in your thermostat. That’s a big one,” Padilla said.
The federal Energy Saver program also shares tips on how to keep cool during the summer on its website. Those tips include:
- Setting your thermostat as high as is comfortable in the summer, and raising the setpoint when you're sleeping or away from home.
- Cleaning or replacing filters on air conditioners once a month or as recommended.
- Turning off kitchen, bath and other exhaust fans within 20 minutes after you are done cooking or bathing.
- Keeping window coverings closed during the day to block the sun's heat.
- Selecting energy-efficient products when you buy new cooling equipment.
VERIFY partner stations KCEN-TV and WCNC contributed to this story.
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