Derek Cole answers homeowner questions about utility load-management programs that cycle off air conditioners during peak demand. He discusses comfort risks, equipment safety, and practical savings like unplugging phantom loads and drying clothes outdoors instead of using the dryer.
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Hey, on this episode we talk about load management system for your AC unit and how can I save energy even though I don't want to turn my temperature down? You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derek Cole. Welcome to episode 88 of the App Ask Derrick Cole show. Answering our home and energy questions. And we're coming off a very hot week. We're kind of recouping, slowing down a little bit, but it's just, it's fine. I mean, I mean I would rather be 100 degrees, but we all can have what we want.
Should I sign up for the load management program with my energy company?
Since this is the Ask Derek Cole show, I'm going to give you my opinion. I would never sign up for this program. My energy company offers it to me and I say no because for 32 bucks a year they now have control to turn my power off and my AC off. I'm sorry, my ac, not my power, my AC off whenever they feel like it. So last week it was 101 degrees and they could turn my power or my AC off at 2pm and leave it off for. I think the contract says like, you know, within 18 hours they can go more than 10 hours. What? You realize how warm my house gets when it's 100 degree outside and my AC is off? So no, the reason they offer you that program is because in the summertime obviously everyone's running the ac, there's a lot of strain on the power grid. So they want to not use other power companies for power. So to save them from doing that, they offer you this program. Say, hey, you can save 30 bucks a year. You put this little device on your outdoor unit. We turn your AC off, leave your indoor fan running. Side note, which is not a good idea because around here we have about 70% humidity. So you don't want the inside fan to run with no AC and they can control. Okay, now we feel like turning off or we don't feel like turned off. We do feel it's not worth it. For 30 bucks I'm not going to sacrifice my comfort, my family's comfort and more importantly, when I get home at 5, 36, 30 at night, I don't want my house to be 79, 80 degrees and I'm time to pull it down to 74 because the power has been off on my AC for the last two hours. So as you can probably tell, I have a very strong response to this question. I would, I would not do it now. A lot of people do it. You know what, that's your call. It's your house, it's your home, it's your ac. What we've seen professionally here is that the individuals with the two speed or two stage compressors, when it's really hot outside, is running the second stage. So for it to turn off efficiently, it needs to go down the first stage and then turn off. The problem with this device being on that unit is it just cuts the power off. So you could be between one first stage and second stage. It doesn't matter. It's going to turn off and then we've had quite a bit of problems. Malfunctions, compressor issues. Because it wasn't properly shut down, it was in the middle of stages. So that's a whole another problem. But outside the comfort situation, I would not recommend you do that.
I'm worried my energy bill will be high with this hot weather. What can I do besides adjusting my temperature?
Simple things you can do. People, people don't understand. My wife and kids are one of them. That even though you're not charging your cell phone and it's plugged in, it is still pulling power. So unplug the things you're not using. Unplug them from the wall. It is what they call power stealers or power vampires. They're taking energy and they're, and they're not doing anything, they're just taking energy. So that's one thing I would do is very, very simple. You know when it's 1, 2, 3 o' clock in the afternoon when it's really hot, or even 5 o' clock when you get home and it's still the end of the day where it's pretty warm. I would not run things like your washer and your dryer, things that, you know, if you cook on the stove, I would kind of hold it off or go outside and do it on the grill. You just don't want to add heat into the home that's already hot. So you're trying to cool the house down, but then you're cooking and you got a dryer going and you're just adding more problems onto what you're doing. Also the shades, I know some people like to leave the front door open. So I again, when it's really warm outside, you obviously want to shut that door. You want to close the shades on that sunny part of the house. You want to do as much as you can for your home to do that thing that's really called passive cooling. Where you're just not letting the sun infiltrate the space when you don't need to. Those are little things you can do. I'm not huge on, you know, sitting your temperature way up when it's out outside. I don't think that that's probably gonna help you out because you're gonna pull it back down when you get home. So little things like that, why it up? I mean, you do those little things and you think about, you know, the heat of the day on your house. So as much as you can do to not add to that situation, the better. So that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, when I came home from church like a few Sundays ago and it was like, like two o', clock, I was like, yeah, we need to dry his clothes. I was like, whoa, no, do not dry the clothes. It's so hot outside. So I waited till sundown to do it.
I'll just hang them outside. Oh, they're gonna be dry in a minute. Pray that it doesn't rain while it's out there.
You're assuming we have out do our hangers, and that's.
That's a European thing. Hang your clothes outside.
We used to do it when I was little. Was it what they call this? Clotheslines? Clothes pins, Clotheslines. We used to have clotheslines outside.
How they call it? That's, that's. That comes from somebody who has a dryer at the home.
Yeah, we use a dryer now. So you want that fresh, clean smell on your clothes. It's called UV and ozone. That's what that's called outside. So that's it. All right. Episode 88 of the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Be sure to hashtag your questions AskDerrich Cole, and we will get them on the show.
