“In recent years we are finding that most of the seniors we serve are keeping their thermostat at 80 F to save money,” she said. Older people on limited incomes are making dangerous tradeoffs and often won’t come to cooling centers when they don’t allow pets. Katie Martin, administrator of home improvements and community services at the Foundation for Senior Living, said she sees the pet issue, too. With the unrelenting heat of the recent weeks, “I’m honestly afraid what the electric bill will be, which makes it really hard to budget with rent and other utilities.” “Sometimes I wish I could have it cooler, but we have to balance saving money and making sure the house isn’t too hot for our pets.”

Air conditioning is “constantly a topic of conversation,” with her partner, too, she said. Last month, Rabany said her utility bill was around $150.Įmily Schmidt’s home cooling strategy in Tempe, Ariz. “Those are the hours that I have it at the hottest I’m willing to have it because I have a dog,” she said. She keeps fans running and has a cooling bed for Rigley, and they both try to get by until the utility’s official peak hours pass. Through trial and error, Rabany found that 83 degrees is a temperature she is willing to tolerate to keep her bill down.īy tracking the on-peak and off-peak schedule of her utility, Arizona Public Service, with the help of her NEST smart thermostat, Rabany keeps her home that hot from 4 to 7 p.m., the most expensive hours.

Yet some are cutting back on AC, trying to bear the heat, afraid of the high electricity bills that will soon arrive.Ĭamille Rabany, 29, has developed her own system to keep herself and her 10-month-old Saint Bernard Rigley cool during the Arizona heat wave. “This level of heat that we are having in Phoenix right now is enormously dangerous, particularly for people who either don’t have air conditioning or cannot afford to operate their air conditioner,” said Evan Mallen, a senior analyst for Georgia Institute of Technology’s Urban Climate Lab. Bean knows this not only from his research, he also experienced it firsthand this weekend when his air conditioner broke. When a cloudless sky combines with outdoor temperatures over 100 degrees, your house turns into an “air fryer” or “broiler,” as the roof absorbs powerful heat and radiates it downward, said Jonathan Bean, co-director of the Institute for Energy Solutions at the University of Arizona.

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