Besides insulation and air conditioning unit, what else is there to check if the A/C isn’t keeping me cool

air-conditioning

I live in an apartment home where the indoor temperature has risen to above 80 degrees Fahrenheit daily for the past two months. The outdoor temperature regularly reaches 100 degrees and the weather has been very dry.

I am sweating as I type this post.

I have been bugging my apartment manager for months now to fix the situation.

A while back, a technician came to my unit and pointed an infrared temperature sensor at my vents and it read out 60 degrees. However, the air coming out doesn't feel that cool to me.
Two weeks ago, they installed a new A/C unit outside my unit. This morning, a crew came to install new insulation.

I would think that it would cover everything, but the temperature is still 82 degrees at 21:50h. I arrived home at about 18:00h and the temperature was 84 degrees.

I paid an almost $200 electric bill for my one bedroom apartment last month and I still sweat at home every day. This is crazy!

Since the A/C unit and the insulation have been replaced, what is the next thing to be looking at to get the situation fixed?

Best Answer

First, I feel your pain. I'm in Houston at my girlfriend's place; we live in a single family house, and the A/C is running all day even with the thermostat at 84 degrees. I work from home, so I can't let it go up higher than that. Our outside thermometer recorded 106 degrees today.

The things that we've added to the house to help keep cool, besides new insulation and having the A/C unit checked, include a bunch of things. First, a little theory. Your apartment heats up because of the sun heating the building primarily, and secondarily because of infiltration from the outside of warm air.

I'm going to just assume that your landlord isn't willing to replace your windows and doors with low-E dual-paned units. I've done this to my house in Bryan, TX and it literally cut my utility bill in half.

The first thing we did with her place, where the landlord is also not willing to rip out a ton of windows and replace them, was to get blinds with reflective shades in all of the windows, and external solar shades or screens where possible. Remember: Black stuff is OK on the outside of the structure, because black absorbs heat (and you don't care about the heat if it's on the outside) -- and white things on the inside of the structure, because you want the heat to not be absorbed and to just be reflected back out.

The second thing we did was to get a better thermostat for the house. The old one was a manual one with mercury in it; the new one has a digital timer and a bunch of other features that include breaks for things like the compressor coils to defrost.

The third thing we did was start replacing the A/C filter frequently... at least once a month.

It might help to suggest more if we knew what kind of A/C unit you have (is it one of those high-rise below-window units, or a 'real' one with a compressor and air exchanger in a closet or attic?), and what kind of structure (concrete or wood frame) you're in.