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Anyone using air conditioners instead of their central air to save money?

Is this really more efficient with the cost of electric going up? I know the new air conditioners are energy star certified. Just needed some opinions. We don't need to cool the whole house, just a few rooms, and with a baby we don't want the whole house chilly. We just mainly need the downstairs a bit cool and our bedroom. Anyone doing this instead of running their central air for the whole house?

Public Comments

1. If you mean the air conditioners that are window mounted then yes, because central air is air conditioning
2. Using your central air compared to individual air conditioners is a bit like bulk buying. It's cheaper to bulk by a big pack of toilet paper than buy individual rolls. If you're trying to cool most of your entire house, use your central air. If it's one room only, use a separate air con unit (but keep the doors closed.
3. If you keep your temperature above 75 and use a fan to draw the air through the house with the central, that will help keep the bill down. Keep the sun and and the doors closed. If you are cooling one room, the same window unit is better.
4. I'm using an evaporative cooler.
5. We have central air conditioning in our house but have recently purchased and installed several portable air conditioning units in the various rooms to localize our cooling needs. We prefer portable units to window units given the slightly more complex installation requirements for window units. We have one Delonghi and two Whynter units. They've worked great so far and have noticed a decent reduction in our monthly energy bill over the last 2 months.