Best Air Conditioner Cooling Settings
Naturally, when you set an air conditioner to its highest output mode the more energy it will consume. Faster does not always mean better. You could be saving money on your electricity if you set the air conditioner to its suggested manufacturer settings. The first check you should make if you are purchasing an air conditioner is to get an air conditioner that suits your room size. We have provided an air conditioner room size calculator in our previous post. If you have an existing calculator then go to the maker’s website and see what they consider to be the best settings.
See our chart below that shows the different sized air conditioners in kilowatt capacity and their running costs depending on the desired room temperature and size. As you can see that for every 1 degree in temperature rise will add approximately 10% to your electricity bill. Electricity provider Ergon Energy has an air conditioner appliance calculator that calculates the costs by the kW size of your air conditioner system together with the temperature and hourly usage each day.
Correct air conditioner settings do save money
Our table shows the hourly running costs for different sized air conditioners and varying temperature settings.
At first sight, the difference between 53 cents and 58 cents may not seem like a lot of money. But multiply that by 10 hours 7 days a week for 52 weeks and the saving is $18.20 per year and that is for a 1-degree increase on a 7.1kW air conditioning system. Now increase the temperature by 4 degrees and the difference is $72.80 per year. And this is just for 1 appliance in your home. We have created a case study below to demonstrate how small changes to your air conditioner system can wipe 20% of your electricity bill.
Air Conditioner Case study:
Maria likes to be cool in her home. Recently Maria purchased and had installed a 7.1kW split system air conditioning unit. Her air conditioner was running for 5 hours a day with the temperature set to 21 degrees.
Looking at the table above we can see the cost per hour is $0.58 and $2.90 per day at 5 hours. Using our calculator for the 90 day summer period the cost will be $261.00 to cool Maria’s home.
Our preferred setting is 23 degrees. If Maria runs her air conditioner for 90 days in this setting will she save money? The table shows us Maria is saving $0.11 per hour at the 23-degree setting. At this setting for 90 days over the summer period the new cost will be $211.50 which is a saving of $49.50 or 18.9% if the air conditioner was set to 21 degrees.
Choosing the right-sized air conditioner for your home
Selecting the right size air conditioner for your home or individual rooms in your home is important. If you have an air conditioner for a room that is too small will make the air conditioner work harder to cool down to space. Or, if the air conditioner unit is too big for the room will make the system go over the desired setting. Generally, air conditioner size ratings are 80 watts for each square metre of the room. To simplify this check out our table below to get the approximate system size to suit your room space. 
