I am someone who turns on the air-conditioner when it gets too hot or too cold, and turn it off when the temperature is fine even if the air-conditioner is not making any noise (meaning it is maintaining the temperature instead of working hard to moderate it to whichever temperature you set).
Many people have said that leaving the air-conditioner running constantly helps you save more than if you keep turning it on and off. I understand the logic, because having to alter the temperature is more intensive than having to maintain it. However, it largely depends on how often you turn the air-conditioner on and off as well, isn’t it?
I don’t turn it on and off that often, so I don’t see how leaving it on can save me more money. And recently, my belief was proven.
Y, the girl who recently left our company, stays very near me. I can get to her place in under 5 minutes by bicycle, which takes care of the doubt on whether our bills are charged differently. Her apartment also belongs to the company and is about as old as the one I am staying at. Y is someone who leaves her air-conditioner on the whole day, except during the time she takes a shower and after (which is about 2-3 hours at most) so that she doesn’t catch a cold coming out to a cold room after her bath. So her air-conditioner is on for over 20 hours a day during the summer.
I asked her how much electricity bill she pays for electricity during seasons she doesn’t use the air-conditioner vs the summer where she leaves it running for most of the day. She said on usual months, she pays about 4,000 yen, and during the summer, it goes up to over 7,000 yen. For me, regardless of the month, my electric bill almost never exceeds 4,000 yen, which means we use about the same amount of electricity during the seasons where we do not use the air-conditioner.
So, during the summer when Y leaves the air-conditioner on most of the day her bill goes up by 3,000 yen while my bill remains under 4,000 (with probably a difference of just a few hundred yen).
Of course, do take note that this is due to the lack of frequency in between each time I turn it off and then turn in back on again. Also, the absolute numbers depends largely on where you live and what company you use as well.
The electricity bills in Japan so cheap? In SG, I recall last time i school holiday on aircon the whole day, the bills easily few hundred dollars liao then my father will hammer me T_T
I’m not sure how big your family is since it’s difficult to compare a room for 1 barely the size of 20sqm with your family of a few members in a house of larger size. I have another friend whose family of 11 spends about 110,000 yen a month on utilities. That’s about SGD$1,300 every month =\ so it also depends on how you use it. Y is mostly not at home, so apart from the air-conditioner (and fridge), there isn’t much else using up the electricity, and she doesn’t have a TV (God forbid)!
ah i see that’s true! hmm at that point in time it was only me and my parents and we used to live in a small 2rm condo the entire unit is maybe 80ish sqm, so if we take just the room size, maybe 20-30sqm too!?. I can’t remember the exact figures haha but during normal school days, both aircons are used only at night while sleeping (maybe 8 hrs ish) and the electricity bills will be like maybe mid 100s or something… then school holidays come and i spam my aircon in the afternoons or sleep in late and aircon is left running all the way until late afternoon, i think the bill jump to 200++ (so maybe 100++ sgd?) <– this makes the 3000 yen increase for your friend seem quite cheap X_X
in a sense i think that's good, that means i can spam my aircon in future if i make it to japan 😀
Haha, probably.
But again, when you say you spam your air-conditioner, at what temperature do you set it? Singaporeans seem to set it to the lowest like 16-18.
Y sets it at around 22-23. For me, I set it between 26 to 28 in the summer. I know it sounds ridiculous to you. It did to me too when I first arrived in Japan, but when you give it a try, you will realise how cooling 28 can be. If you do set it to 18 here though, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be more expensive.