Today, I tried an experiment with our air conditioning. See, it’s been a really long, hot summer where we live and our air conditioning bills have been really high for the past three months. That’s why, today, when it’s been cooler than it’s been in weeks and weeks, I decided to turn off our air conditioning and open up the windows and doors to try and get some cool, fresh air into the house. Not only did I want some fresh air in the house, I wanted to give our A/C unit a rest from constantly working (and give our wallets a rest from constantly paying for the A/C!) Well, it worked pretty well for most of the day. The breeze was nice and cool all day and we didn’t really do anything strenuous outside in the sunshine. It wasn’t bad at all until the evening sun came streaming in through the back doors and windows and heating up the house. At that point, the heat in the house became almost unbearable and I decided to turn the thermostat back to air conditioning. Well, the house had gotten so hot by then that my husband and I couldn’t get to sleep. We’re used to sleeping with the thermostat set at around 67 or 68 degrees, and the temperature was about ten degrees hotter than that! Once the A/C kicked on again, it had to work ten times harder to try and cool the entire house back down to a cooler temperature. I don’t think my idea worked out very well at all. Our air conditioning bill will probably be more now than it would’ve been if I’d just let the programmable thermostat do its job.