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See if you believed any of these. I admit to believing the first one. I thought it cooled the place faster if you deliberately set your AC way lower than you needed initially.
Myth: Cranking your air conditioner up high (by setting your unit's thermostat significantly below the temperature you want to achieve) will cool your house faster.
Fact: Your air conditioner will deliver cool air at the same rate no matter how low you go on the thermostat setting. If you turn the thermostat to 50 degrees when you want it to get to 72 degrees, your room won't get cooler any faster, says Jamy Bacchus at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). He uses this analogy to illustrate the concept: If you are driving from New York to Philadelphia and you set your GPS to Washington D.C. you aren't going to get to Philadelphia any faster.
The one exception, Bacchus says, is if your room air conditioner has a "low, medium, high" setting instead of a thermostat. In that case, setting your unit up to high will cool the room faster, but you should remember to turn it down to low or medium once your room feels comfortable so you don't waste energy and money.
http://green.yahoo.com/blog/the_conscious_consumer/144/five-air-conditioning-myths-busted.html
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I would hate to be out the cost of replacing my AC. Our house is old and so is it. I pray every summer we'll get one more summer out of it. Touch wood, no major repairs yet. All we've had to do is get the freon topped up. I do get it serviced every year or two to try extend its life.
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This was an idea I hadn't heard.
Switch boxes for clothes dryers: Install a switch box on the hose of your clothes dryer. In the summer, the hot air is pumped outside, as it normally would. In the winter, flip the switch box to redirect the heat back into the room. These inexpensive boxes are available at any hardware store.
It's from this article on passive cooling.
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I never use my dryer in summer. It seems pointless to when there's all that free sunshine outside! In fact I use it as little as possible all year round. I'd rather have washing hanging up overnight indoors than use the electricity. The only time I really have to is when I have something big that's not so easy to dry like a comforter. The switch box would be a good idea for winter though.
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I hate having the place cluttered with washing but I hate paying a big electricity bill even more LOL. If I can dry it outside or in without turning on the dryer, I do.
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My neighbor said that the biggest reason air conditioners don't last is if you don't get the coils cleaned regularly. They build up dust and muck on them and then the unit burns out. He said once a year is enough and it's worth the cost of a service call vs the cost of a new air conditioner.
I just read this in the Best Time to Buy Guide about air conditioning units if anyone has one you don't think will last another summer.
Top Ten Reasons Why I Procrastinate.
1.