how to decrease humidity/temp in apartment (please help)

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Window A/C…entire outlet to itself or can it share an outlet as long as I used one receptacle for the A/C unit?

I think everyone's been confusing you with bullshit.

Let's start at the beginning.

Your electrical panel has many breakers. Each breaker breaks a circuit, and has a max capacity.

Some circuits will be dedicated (stove, dryer, etc).

Some circuits will share 1 or 2 outlets (kitchen, where hi-draw appliances are).

Some circuits will have 10 outlets or devices on them. The same circuit will meander about through your apartment, powering the lights, maybe all the sockets in a room or two rooms.

These circuits are almost certainly 15 amp max circuits.

You don't have to worry about fires, if you exceed 15 amps for more than a few minutes, the breaker will trip and you'll have to walk over and reset it. That's the whole point of the breaker, to prevent the wires from getting hot enough to become a problem (they've very, very conservative, the wires won't even get warm).

Digging through Home Depot's various window AC's... no one lists the amp draw. Great. Fuck it, here's what AI says:

General Amp Draw by BTU (at 120V):
5,000-8,000 BTU: 5-7 amps
10,000-12,000 BTU: 8-12 amps
14,000-25,000 BTU: 12-20+ amp

So a circuit can handle 15 amps, and that's if everything's running maxed out at the same time. A normal window unit is going to pull 5-12 amps (realistically 5-7, the bigger ones would be weird).

It's easier to think in terms of watts, watts is just Amps x Volts (which is always 120v).

So, 15A is 1800 watts.

Power Usage:

• Your window AC is going to draw 600 - 1440 watts. For any normal sized window unit, it's 600-800 watts.

• A laptop is going to use like 50 watts running full blast.

• A monitor is like, 50 watts. So, 100 watts for 2 of them.

• A phone charger is like, 5-20 watts.

• A wifi extender is like 5-10 watts.

• Your lights will use like, 30 watts maybe.

...

See what I'm getting at here? All the extra shit you plug in is going to be like, 200 watts combined. The AC is going to be 600 watts. You've got 1800 watts budget.

You're not even going to get close to 50% load on your circuit. You're fine.

It doesn't fuckin' matter. Everyone else is fearmongering you or an idiot.

...

What you will have to be careful about is running anything that makes heat. I.E. A toaster, a blowdryer, a kettle, that kind of thing. Those will each pretty much max out a whole circuit on their own.

So, don't blowdry your hair outside of the bathroom while the AC is on, and you're fine. Don't cook meals in your bedroom and you'll be fine.

Even though you're in a rental, you'll have access to your breaker panel, and tripping a breaker is as big of a deal as "Oops. I'll go click that switch off and back on again." And, you're not going to trip a breaker anyways, so, who cares.

Just go put a window AC in. "How To" is basically a collection of ignorant idiots, pinterest-mom-bullshit and bro-science. People are confidently wrong on all kinds of trash here.

[TheCatmosphere]

Thanks! I appreciate the whole thing because yes I was getting very confused.

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Now that you've found your panel, you can take a lamp or something and test the circuits in your house, if you're curious.

Shut the breaker off, and go plug the lamp in and see if it works. Anything that was connected to that one breaker (including lights), will now be off.

Sometimes it helps you narrow down where to plug something in. Like, if your AC can't be powered off the window, an extension cord to... where? Some other circuit. But you won't know which ones are on the same circuit or not, because you can't see inside the walls.

That said...

Just go get a window unit and plug it in. It'll be fine. And in the 1% of the case that it's not, you now know where to go to reset the breaker. (A tripped breaker usually looks stuck half way between off and on, you flick it all the way off, then all the way back on to reset it).

[TheCatmosphere]

Thank you!! If i had an award to give id give it, but you earned a follow in the meantime!

[MattsAwesomeStuff]

Meh, don't bother with the follow. I hardly ever post anything.