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Turn up the air conditioner?
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Turn down the air conditioner?
I can’t vote because I don’t know the answer to this myself, and I’ve often wondered about it. I end up saying "Turn up the air cond… er, turn down the air… oh, just make it colder!
You turn up the air conditioner because you’re setting it to work at a higher rate - which results in the temperature in the room going down. The work being done by the AC and the temperature are going in opposite directions even if the former causes the latter.
Other: “Turn on the AC. No, more, more!”
you turn UP the air conditioner which you do by turning DOWN the thermostat ( the little thermostat arm goes to the left)
If we’re talking about the A/C in my car on a hot day, I turn it UP when I’m driving on the parkway, but I turn it DOWN when I park it in the driveway.
This is a trick question, isn’t it?
This is correct. Temperature is inversely proportional to the energy consumed by the appliance. “Turn up” means to apply more energy.
I don’t have an air conditioner in my house, but in the car I would say I was turning it up. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that it could be said the other way. I guess if you have central air you could just say you were turning down the temperature, but people who aren’t rich don’t have that here, and I don’t know rich people.
I sometimes to say “turn up the AC,” but I always recognize the potential for misunderstanding, and so I usually use a different phrase altogether, such as “Honey, I’m going to make the room cooler.” Even “crank up the AC” is relatively unambiguous compared to “turn up.”
How about “Set the thermostat to 67°” - up and down can be such nebulous terms…
And, FYI, we keep ours set at 75° and we use lots of fans.
Every conversation about this in my house sounds like that.
What temp would turn off the fans?
I want 67 68 & I use fans because I have to have air movement.
Wife wants 72 75 and no air movement.
A single point:
Before buying a central all outside heat pump, 3 different places said that to get a middle to well insulated house with GOOD windows, which we had done before, double hung, dual pane gas filled, vinyl framed windows, that, "Set the temp and leave it all the time unless gone for a week or more. ( Once walls, furniture, etc., got to that temp, it was more economical to keep it there than run it up & down 5 degrees each day.
Cooler than temp set, heat pump off, windows open until temp again matches, same in winter, warm day, open windows, etc..
I asked about a new house in an open field, (we have an 1960 well built rock house with lots of tree shade & a white metal roof, total electric due to location,) and he said if properly insulated, same rules.
Smaller spaces & all interior walls or mostly, apartment, then it can change.
Window units for just one room, trial & error for each application.
Applies to weather locations similar to the north half of Arkansas.
Average temps and different building types with very different temp averages = different total efficiency plans.
Neither. I increase the air conditioning. Didn’t vote because you omitted a third option.
I asked my husband this question and he said almost verbatim what Little Nemo said.
I think I use both, to be honest. Like “I’m going to go crank the AC” meaning I’m going to make the house colder. Or, “I’m going to set the AC lower”, implying lower temperature and thus making the house colder. I don’t ever use the exact phrasings listed in the poll though.
Oddly enough, in the home I say “turn down the AC” because that’s the way the knob goes (or the button you’re pressing in these modern times) but in the car I say “turn up the AC” because that’s the way the dial is moving.
Never really thought about it, though. I live in one of the parts of America where you spend less time thinking about the semantics of the term and more time going “OH LAWDY SOMEBODY COOL DOWN THIS HOUSE.”
Turn up the fan, turn down the heat.
I say turn up (or the less ambiguous “crank up”) even though I know it’s not necessarily correct.
My go-to IRL terminology for this is “set the AC to Arctic.”
Turn the temperature down.