Cheapest way to cool master bedroom?

I am looking for some advice as summer is slowly coming up and in Tampa it is starting to warm up. I am trying to find the least expensive route to cool my master bedroom as cold as I possibly can . To give you an idea I am one of those people who in the Florida winter regardless of if it is 30 outside will have my fans on and the windows open allowing me to get my house down to 50 or so.

As it stands now I have the thermostat set to hit 68 around midnight to 1:00 AM so it is cool when I go to bed. Unfortunately as a result I am really overcooling and running my electric up since I only need my room to be this low and even lower if I could cheaply. I have started looking at window units but the two windows closest to my bed are only 12.5" high by just shy of 24" wide. I am just looking for ideas or suggestions. I figure there should be some way I run something in my room while raising the thermostat for the house so that I could save some on my electric. My bedroom is probably 17x20.

If I could find a way to bring my electric down lower or keep it the same while making my room colder I would definitely be interested.

It is your choice, but 68º is a very very low temperature to achieve with residential A/C. Many people live with a system which would never achieve that.

You could get a portable air conditioner which would connect its hose to that small window.

Have you checked the humidity in the house? I know it is humid in FL, but if you have the A/C running that strong, it should be lowering the RH. If the A/C is overpowered, it could be short cycling, which will not get the humidity down like it should.

You would find a better comfort level by lowering the humidity.

Chech with one of your local heating and air contractors on a split mini system, it can be sized to cool only one room and make it as cool as possible without cooling all of the house. And one thing you dont want to do is close the registers to other rooms in your house, your air conditioning needs a minimum amount of airflow over the coils to work right and closing registers and doors to try and save money usually ends up costing you more then it saves

I will check into that. Yeah I had been told about not closing the doors or registers so I don't but I do have them open only about 25% in the rooms I rarely go into.

I realize 68 is a low temp to aim for and my Trane system seems to be able to pull it off. Anything higher than 70 though and I have a tough time sleeping. They need to make cold beds and sheets. I think I am just spoiled since I have been able to keep it around 50 in here for so long this year and I am trying to desperately hold on to the cold.

I found a product called BedFan to try to accomplish your goal---just got it last week so I have no opinion as to effectiveness yet.Im not sure if the noise level is going to be a bother .You can do a search and form an opinion.

I have no vested /financial interest in the product.

Try adding this to yor bedroom and I be you can get it lower than 68F


http://www.mrslim.com/Products/subCategory.asp?ProductCategoryID=24&ProductSubCategoryID=139&OVRAW=Mitsubishi%20Mr.%20slim&OVKEY=mitsubishi%20mr%20slim&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=574037021&OVKWID=2369683021


They have a 24 SEER heat pump that will put out 9500 BTUs at 0 F that I am considering installing at my dads house this fall...

I just noticed you wanted the cheapest way and the Mr. Slim is not...but would work great...if you did get one it would lessen the demand on the rest of the house and you might even be able to turn off the rest of the house at night or at least not cool it as much and save energy that way...

Cheapest would be put a window AC in
I prefer to build them into the wall

A 17x24 = 340 sq ft
According to this an 8-9,000 BTU would do it

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=roomac.pr_properly_sized

Since you like it cold I'd go to a 12k AC
I picked up 14K AC's for less then $200 each after a rebate
You'll quickly save the money of having one built into the wall in reduced electric costs

I put a 24k AC in the wall at my old house ~912 sq ft
I also had one in the bedroom that was 10k (cathedral ceiling)
I ran the bedroom AC a lot more then the main room (open floor plan)

There are calculators that take into account the exposure, volume, window area, insulation factors that will help you size a a/c unit. The worst thing you can do is use an oversized one - it will short-cycle and make it cold, but clammy. Max comfort requires dropping the humidity levels, and that means many passes over the evaporator coils, and if it is oversized, it shuts off before that occurs.