Glad I found you forum.

I have bought a 2 story town home in Florida, via FHA. The house in 1150 Sq ft. I have lived in the house for 8 weeks now. My first electricity bill was around $50 and that was for 23 days during April. The A/C was on, but with temps outside in the mid 70's, it was not on too much.

Its now May and temps outside are reaching a heat index of 100 in the day and night time index's off around 80ish, and it will get hotter as the summer goes on.

The A/C system is around 5 years old, both outside and in. The inside unit is located at the top of the stairs, and the outside, well, outside.

The thermostat is located at on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. As you walk up the stairs the ceiling is very high as you can imagine, without any vents located in this area.

I replaced the manual thermostat with a hunter fan digital thermostat to calculate accurate temperature readings.

We keep the thermostat between 78 and 80 degrees. With the heat outside, when you’re indoors, that feels real cool.

My concern is that it seams to take a long time to cool down the house. For example, if we go out, we set the thermostat to 83, we maybe out for an hour or two and when we get home it will be at say at 82, I will drop it down to 79 and it will take about 1hr 20 minutes appox to cool the house down.

The other side of the coin is that when the A/C stops cooling at the desired temp, it does no take long at all for the temp of the house to start going up.

Today for example, it was 93 outside, and the AC was set at 78. The A/C would kick on every 25 to 30 minutes, gradually extending as the temp outside would drop. It felt like it was on for 30 minutes and off for 30 minutes. It would cool to 78 and as soon at it hit 79 it would kick in.

For me it seams to take too long to cool down and does not stay cool long enough and the a/c is running too much, hence I'm terrified of getting my electricity bill in a week or so.

With the house being two stories, and with one unit servicing both, it will naturally take longer to cool. My main concern is that the house does not keep cool long enough and seams to absorb and hold the heat from outside.

Dose what I have explained above sound normal for an 1150 sq ft town home, located in hot and humid Florida?

Some additional Information...

Downstairs is designed so the living room and the kitchen are as one, with the kitchen veering of the left like a backwards L shape. Two vents in the Living room area, one in the sit down area in the Kitchen and one in the Kitchen itself.


Upstairs has two bedrooms with one vent in each. The master bedroom has a walk in closet without a vent and a bathroom with a vent. There is another bathroom upstairs with a vent. One bathroom downstairs which also has a vent.

All vents blow nice cold air. The vents themselves are designed that when air is coming from the ducts through the vents, the air is redirected to the left and right and then to the opposite of the direction the air is coming in. In other terms or for use of a better word, the vents are best described as 3 directional vents. All rooms have these types of vents which are located in the ceilings. Would installing regular one direction vents be wiser? Would one direction vents allow air to flow faster into the rooms? It seams that the three way vents I currently have slow down the air flow. I have ceiling fans in the living rooms and bedrooms and they are placed in a good position beside the vents.

I have probably answered my own question with everything pointing to the house insulation. I was assured by the FHA Appraisal guy and by the home inspector that the house was properly insulated etc. I could only trust the FHA people as they would not allow me to buy the property unless it was in great condition.

Before I moved into this house, I lived in a one level 1000 sq ft apartment. It only took a fraction of the time to cool that place down as it dose my town home and the A/C unit was not on as often.

I do apologize for the length of this post; I just wanted to give as much information to the experts on this group as possible.

Is the above normal for a town home, or do I have problems I should concern myself with?

Thanking you all in advance.

Glad I found you forum.

I have bought a 2 story town home in Florida, via FHA. The house in 1150 Sq ft. I have lived in the house for 8 weeks now. My first electricity bill was around $50 and that was for 23 days during April. The A/C was on, but with temps outside in the mid 70's, it was not on too much.

Its now May and temps outside are reaching a heat index of 100 in the day and night time index's off around 80ish, and it will get hotter as the summer goes on.

The A/C system is around 5 years old, both outside and in. The inside unit is located at the top of the stairs, and the outside, well, outside.

The thermostat is located at on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. As you walk up the stairs the ceiling is very high as you can imagine, without any vents located in this area.

I replaced the manual thermostat with a hunter fan digital thermostat to calculate accurate temperature readings.

We keep the thermostat between 78 and 80 degrees. With the heat outside, when you’re indoors, that feels real cool.

My concern is that it seams to take a long time to cool down the house. For example, if we go out, we set the thermostat to 83, we maybe out for an hour or two and when we get home it will be at say at 82, I will drop it down to 79 and it will take about 1hr 20 mins appox to cool the house down.

The other side of the coin is that when the A/C stops cooling at the desired temp, it does no take long at all for the temp of the house to start going up.

Today for example, it was 93 outside, and the AC was set at 78. The A/C would kick on every 25 to 30 mins, gradually extending as the temp outside would drop. It felt like it was on for 30 mins and off for 30 mins. It would cool to 78 and as soon at it hit 79 it would kick in.

For me it seams to take too long to cool down and does not stay cool long enough and the a/c is running too much, hence I'm terrified of getting my electricity bill in a week or so.

With the house being two stories, and with one unit servicing both, it will naturally take longer to cool. My main concern is that the house does not keep cool long enough and seams to absorb and hold the heat from outside.

Dose what I have explained above sound normal for an 1150 sq ft town home, located in hot and humid Florida?

Some additional Information....

Downstairs is designed so the living room and the kitchen are as one, with the kitchen veering of the left like a backwards L shape. Two vents in the Living room area, one in the sit down area in the Kitchen and one in the Kitchen itself.


Upstairs has two bedrooms with one vent in each. The master bedroom has a walk in closet without a vent and a bathroom with a vent. There is another bathroom upstairs with a vent. One bathroom downstairs which also has a vent.

All vents blow nice cold air. The vents themselves are designed that when air is coming from the ducts through the vents, the air is redirected to the left and right and then to the opposite of the direction the air is coming in. In other terms or for use of a better word, the vents are best described as 3 directional vents. All rooms have these types of vents which are located in the ceilings. Would installing regular one direction vents be wiser? Would one direction vents allow air to flow faster into the rooms? It seams that the three way vents I currently have slow down the air flow. I have ceiling fans in the living rooms and bedrooms and they are placed in a good position beside the vents.

I have probably answered my own question with everything pointing to the house insulation. I was assured by the FHA Appraisal guy and by the home inspector that the house was properly insulated ect. I could only trust the FHA people as they would not allow me to buy the property unless it was in great condition.

Before I moved into this house, I lived in a one level 1000 sq ft apartment. It only took a fraction of the time to cool that place down as it dose my town home and the A/C unit was not on as often.

I do apologize for the length of this post; I just wanted to give as much information to the experts on this group as possible.

Is the above normal for a town home, or do I have problems I should concern myself with?

Thanking you all in advance.
... in the attic well insulated? The air conditioner may have to work extra hard (and often does) when the fresh air is piped through an already hot attic. Is the attic well insulated and does it have adequate means for venting fresh air to/from the outside when the sun heats the attic to temperature exceeding that of the outside temperatures? This includes gable, eave and possibly roof ridge vents. There is no reason to replace the fresh air inside inlet vents unless they are directing the cool air outside or directly back to a cold air return. I have seen tremendous gains made by adding non-motorized roof turbines; increased attic insulation and making sure the existing vents were clean and unobstructed. Also make certain the filters are clean and if possible add some shade to the outside condenser unit without obstructing the airflow around and above it. Finally, make sure you seal off all air leaks to the outside and the attic. You can sometimes locate these culprits (such as the vents themselves, ceiling light fixtures, etc.), as you will feel some cold air rushing by them on its way to the outside. Caulk is a good insulator and will cut down on the air being diverted outside the area of concern. Loose insulation placed around all ceiling fixture in the attic is another quick fix. You may not find a single large loss but several additive ones. Of course, don't forget the windows.

Hey there, sounds like we have similar situations regarding trying to keep the upstairs cool.
My thermostat is downstairs (where it is cool in the summer & warm in the winter), just about everything you described, from the West windows, to the closets with no vents is how my condo is arranged.

Have you received any information which has proved successful to cool off the upstairs?

I'm renting, so I can not install ceiling fans, nor will the Assoc. install them due to the cost of rewiring.

Any suggestions which you received that you think would be helpful to me?

Id recomened a second unit upstairs

You may want to consider installing a whole-house evacuator fan. They are not very expensive, and can be installed by a handyman rather than an expensive contractor.
What this will do for you... It would be installed in your upstairs attic. The first thing it would accomplish would be to evacuate the extreme heat trap in your attic. Then it would pull the (sometimes stale air) air out of the house before starting up your AC unit.
A money saving tip is to leave the unit in the off position if you are away from the home each day. This is very useful if you are away from the home (say at work) all day. Instead of asking your AC unit to cool a very warm home. When you decide to use the AC the first thing you would do is open a window on the coolest (downstairs) side of the house. Then turn on the house-fan. It will pull the cool air in from the open window and force all the air from the house out the attic. After about 10 minutes you can choose to turn the unit off and turn on your AC. Or, if the outside air is comfortable enough, you would simply do without the AC altogether.
The greatest cost savings we experience with our house fan is in the evening hours. We shut down the AC completely. We have installed safety locks on two downstairs windows so they can be left open about 3 inches each. We simply let the unit bring in the cooler air all evening long. More importantly is our sleeping comfort. We have also done the same to our bedroom window. Closing one of the downstairs windows and opening the bedroom window allows for a comfortable breeze to sweep across the room all evening long.
The unit we purchased runs very economically (equivalent to two 60watt light bulbs). The unit has three speeds. It has vent louvers witch open automatically (gravity close) so there is no opening and closing of vents. It can be installed in the crawl hole or anywhere you choose. I have a friend who installed his in the spare bedroom closet.
Obviously I am very happy with this thing, but it does have some cons. It does produce a higher level of noise than I would like (especially on high). You must have adequate vents in your attic to allow the air to get out. And, if not installed correctly, you can hear vibration from the unit through the house as well. All-in-all it is a great money saver for us.
Hope that helps.

Paul's post above makes a lot of sense. We have a whole house fan in our 2 story house. When the house is filled with hot air, we kick the fan on high, open the front door with the screened storm, and the patio door in the back with its screen. The fan quickly pulls out all the hot air. Towards bed time, we may open a bed room window.

Easy to close the house back up when it is 80 and sticky outside, and turn on the A/C.

Do you have access to the attic?
How deep is the insualtion in the attic?
Does the attic have roof vents?
Does the attic have motorized fans to remove the heat out of the attic?

Take a thermometer up in the attic at see what the temperature is. If it is above 115 degrees then it sounds like it needs more vents or fans to remove the hot air trapped in the attic.

Check up in the attic for any loose a/c ducts. Sometimes they may come loose and leak cold air and reduce the efficiency of the unit.

Has the a/c unit been tested for the proper amount of r-132 (freon)?

Are there any leaves or bushes that are clogging the outside unit?

This post started back in June of 2005, I doubt that they need air conditioning now. Back to the issue of old posts getting answered.

And my two cents about the issue, if anyone has ever been in Florida in July, you will realize that a whole house fan drawing in 100 Deg F at 98% relative humidity outside air, standing by a window with the air being drawn in would be similar to standing in front of a hot oven with the door open.

Air conditioning is the only way to stay cool there, the humid heat is only good for aligators and palmeto bugs.