KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
With the hot temperatures not letting up, the question now is how can people make sure their air conditioner makes it through the hottest part of the day and what is the recommended temperature to set a thermostat at.
Air conditioners across town are working hard right now to keep up with the heat and the only things working harder are the repairmen keeping them running.
"Things are more of an emergency now than they are when it's 75 or 80 out," Alex Kosmicki with KB Complete said.
It's an emergency because losing an A/C unit in the extreme heat isn't just uncomfortable, it's also dangerous.
One thing people are recommended to do is set their home's thermostat higher than they'd like to make sure they don't overtax the air conditioner.
"If you go too low with the thermostat, you can have issues with the unit freezing up," Kosmicki said.
Everyone KCTV5 spoke to Friday had their own system for giving their air conditioners a bit of a break.
"The only thing that we do is keep the air at 74, usually we have it at 69," said one woman.
"I try to keep it at about 75," said another man.
"I try to stay around 78 degrees, but at night I cheat and drop back down to about 74," said an elderly woman.
Experts said changing the thermostat's temperature around to make it cooler when it's really needed and warmer when it's not can save some money, but only if the adjustment is within a five degree range. Experts said anything more and the unit has to work too hard to cool itself back down, canceling out the savings.
The bottom line is, where a person keeps their thermostat really depends on what they can afford, as well as a couple critical opinions from the people living under the same roof.
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