Air-Conditioning Domestic Dramas

It is not the norm for me to get a letter from my electricity company. I've signed up for e-billing and therefore my bill is usually delivered to my online banking account where I arrange for it to be paid. Although the payment information is available in my online banking portal, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a detailed statement of my electricity consumption from January 2007.

As I suspected, I use around $40 per month for my non-air conditioning activities, which is usually between the months of November and March. When the summer kicks in, the electricity consumption shoots up mainly because of the air conditioning. It is also during the summer that I run my in-ground sprinklers every other day so that I can keep my lawns green but I doubt if the pumps consume a lot of electricity for the one hour that they are running.

The funny thing about air conditioning is that my wife thinks I set the thermostat too low because she is always complaining that the house is cold. On the other hand, I'm always complaining that its too hot in the house especially after she has reset the thermostat higher. So it is usually a tussle between both of us constantly playing with the thermostat.

She normally switches it off when she gets home and when I arrive with the kids after her, I turn it on. Then sometime in the evening, she will raise the temperature setting and when we retire, I set it back to it's programmed temperature. This means that she has to turn on the electric blanket when she starts to feel the chill. And because we have wooden flooring and leather seats, she is always wrapped in a blanket when we are in the family room even when the air-conditioning is not running.

And its not just our family that has this kind of drama, whereby the wife is complaining of the cold temperature and the man is complaining of the hot temperatures. These games are usually repeated in many households during the summer when its too hot and in the winter when it is too cold.

At work, it is also not unusual to see lady colleagues wrapped up in warm cardigans or with office heaters below their desks while the males are in short sleeve shirts even in the hot summer months because the temperature is set between 68 - 72F.

If I had it my way (and the money too), I would prefer the house temperature at 68F all year round. Instead, the lowest setting I can ever get the house ito s 72F and that is before my missus starts complaining.