I just moved into an apartment with central air conditioning for the first time in my life. I feel a bit out of my element here, and my Dad croaked a few years back so I don’t have a strong parent to guide me.
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Should it run basically all the time? I know it’s like 95 outside, and we’re in the middle of a heat wave, but it just seems like it always runs 24/7. Every once in a while - maybe once or twice a day that I’m aware of - it will go silent, but it cuts back on about 10 minutes later. Other than that it seems to be “blowing” all the time. Is this normal when it’s 85 outside?
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I set it at 72, which seems reasonably “nice and cool” to me. Is this normal? It’s nowhere near as ice cold as my office, but keeping it closer to 75 starts to feel a bit “lukewarm” to me.
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Opening and closing vents in different rooms. I closed vents back in the kitchen and the room that the thermostat is in because I’m rarely back there, with the idea that that would divert more AC to the other rooms where I spend more time. Does this make sense? The other thing that concerns me is that this makes the thermostat think that it’s constantly 80 degrees, so maybe that’s the explanation for #1 above.
But why should I keep the rooms that I’m not in cool at the expense of the rooms that I actually am in? What do you do about this? Does it make more sense to keep the entire apartment one contiguous “bubble of cool” by opening all vents, or does it make sense to let certain areas be hot so that the areas you’re spending your time in are more cool?