Cooling with Fans or AC or Both?

[purple]

We have a small house with lots of sliding glass doors (one in bedroom, three in living room), affectionately named the glass fishbowl. I has a ceiling fan in every room but the bathroom (which has a skylight). We only have a window unit AC which goes in the bedroom, the only room with a regular window accessible we regularly use (the spare room does too, but only has storage and the parrot who likes it a bit warm).

We try to limit our usage of electricity, but to get the AC cooled air to the living room we normally use a square box fan to push it down the hallway, which works ok. The ceiling fans are normally on as well. It gets to be a bit redundant feeling though and I worry about using more power than the amount of cooling it generates and end up opening the doors and just using the fans alot. Everything but the ceiling fans have decent energy star ratings (no clue on the fans, we didn't install them) but is it better to just use the fans?

[treehugger]

Does the living room only have sliders and no actual windows? That would make it difficult to use AC in there. Do your best to minimize the sun coming in the sliders when it is bright out by having drapes or blinds that you can pull during the day then open the doors so that you can possibly catch a crossbreeze in the evening.

[Naturally Concerned]

From my experience, fans alone don't seem to be doing enough to keep my house cooled off.

I don't like to have to rely heavily on electricity, but Air Conditioners are about the only effective way that I know of to keep conditions bearable within the house.

[berlinlife06]

If I can help it, then I'll use only the fan, but if it is too hot, then I'll turn on the AC. But since my apartment is really small, I turn it on only for a couple of hours and it lasts long time.

[solarwind]

My fans only seem to recirculate the hot air in the house. Sometimes it gets oppressingly hot inside. I have a small a/c inside the bedroom but I am afraid to run it because our electricity bill is already much too high.

[tater03]

I hear you about running the AC. I cringe when I do run it. Is there any window that you could maybe put one of those fans that suck the hot air out of the house? That might help to cool it off.

[Carl]

I think running both an air conditioning unit and a fan at once is a waste of energy. As long as the unit is not too small to cool the area, it will get up to speed pretty quickly and use less energy to cool the area. The fan is not doing much to help anything.

[SageMother]

We use both our ceiling fans and an air conditioner that sits in a window. Since the AC is in a window near the back of the house, and the ceiling fans are near the front, we manage to pull enough cool air through without having a huge AC unit.

[riskey58]

I try do use just fans. I hate running the Ac. But when the humidity gets so high I have to run it too cool it off.

[Green-Moo]

Once you have the place cooled, it's important not to let the heat back in. think about insulating, if you ahve not already. And get some blinds or shutters for the windows.