The best temperature settings when you're at home To stay comfortable and save money, the U.S. Department of Energy recommends the best AC setting during summer is 78°F (26°C) when you are home.
Recommended Thermostat Settings for Summer
We recommend setting your thermostat to 78° F when you are home. While this might make your house a little warmer than you're used to, it will help reduce the cost of your energy bill significantly.
ASHRAE, unlike the EPA, specifies an ideal number to set a building's thermostat to. It's a range, actually: around 23°-26°C, or 73.4°-78.8°F, in the summer.
Setting your air conditioning to 72°F is generally considered a comfortable indoor temperature for many people. It strikes a good balance between comfort and energy efficiency, making it a popular choice for residential settings.
Your AC might not cool properly due to thermostat issues, an undersized unit, or extremely high outdoor temps—so check those first. Keep an eye on airflow—replace clogged filters every 3 months, and make sure vents and ducts aren't blocked for efficient cooling.
To do this, you can go to your settings on your thermostat, and you'll see a menu for the home and away setting. There, you can set the temperatures, times, and days you want the program to run. When you're done choosing the details of the program you want to set, press “set schedule,” and it will automatically set it.
For many of us, 70 degrees is the ideal indoor temperature, but when it is close to 100 degrees outside, your AC unit will be working quite hard to meet these expectations. Consider setting your thermostat at 75 degrees to 80 degrees in your home if the outside temperature is approaching triple digits.
If the temperature is set to 74°F but the thermometer shows 78°F, you will have to recalibrate the thermostat to account for this 4-degree deviation. Even with older AC units or furnaces, you might have to recalibrate your thermostat from time to time.
During a heatwave, we recommend that you don't lower the AC's setting below 68°F. This is already quite chilly for most people, and many would consider it too cold. An air conditioner set this low risk of its coil freezing—and that's bad news because it indicates that the air conditioner is overworked.
Sleep experts believe the best temperature for great sleep is between 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit. But in addition to making you uncomfortable and interfering with healthy sleep patterns, being too hot at any time of day or night can cause health risks like dehydration and heat stroke.
Summer Air Conditioner Settings
In the summer, experts say the thermostat for your air conditioner should be set to at least 78°F during the day when people are at home.
Setting your thermostat just a single digit higher can help you save 6 percent on your cooling costs, according to the EPA.
Automatic mode sets the thermostat to follow the temperature program. Operating the thermostat in this mode is the best way to maintain a high level of temperature comfort whilst maximising your energy savings.
Best AC Temperature Settings While You Are Home
As you consider the most comfortable room temperature for your lifestyle and family, keep in mind that for each degree that you set your thermostat above 72 degrees, you can save up to 3% on your energy bill.
You want to be comfortable, but also use an efficient temperature that doesn't potentially increase your energy costs. The best thermostat setting for summer is 78 degrees Fahrenheit when you're at home. Energy.gov also suggests raising your thermostat or turning it off entirely when you are away in the summer.
This is more of a personal question, as different people feel comfortable at different temperatures. Since 72 degrees is generally agreed upon to be an ideal indoor temperature, most people would probably still feel comfortable setting their AC units slightly higher than this, perhaps at around 75.
Verify that the thermostat is switched to cool mode and has a cooling set point below the room temperature reading. Check the thermostat display for cooling, usually indicated by the words “cool on” or a snowflake icon. If these icons are flashing, the thermostat is in delay mode, which can last up to 5 minutes.
By setting your thermostat to 78°F when you're home and increasing it when you're away, you can save on energy costs without sacrificing comfort. According to the Department of Energy, you can save about 3% on your cooling costs for each degree you raise the thermostat.
The average summer temperature is around 71°F. In winter, this falls just a touch to 70°F. Here's a winter breakdown for thermostat settings across the U.S., according to the survey participants: 47% set it between 68°F and 71°F.
The California Energy Commission recommends that homeowners set their thermostat to 78 degrees when they're home and 85 degrees when they're away from home during the summer.
On average, an air conditioner running in good condition should take about 15-20 minutes to drop the temperature by 1 degree in a standard-sized room. However, factors like outside temperature, unit size, and insulation quality can affect this timing.
Using the “hold” function on your system means you can suspend the program if you'll be away from home for a while, such as while you're on vacation. This means you can tell your HVAC to stay put at a specific temperature to keep your pipes from freezing in winter but as warm as you want it to be for comfort.
Cool mode
This is the most common and usually the default setting when you first turn on the AC. This mode sends cool air throughout your room and is great for cooling down an area after a long, hot day.
To change system settings, touch the mode button on the left-hand side of the thermostat. To switch from heating to cooling, or to turn everything off continue to press the mode button until you have found your desired selection.