AC Facts You Should Know About
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 8/13/06
My wife and I stayed at the Summerfield Suites Las Colinas in Irving Texas in July, 2006. Do not stay here if you feel that you should be able to control the air conditioning in the suite you are paying for. We arrived about noon on a hot day (July in Texas) and were delighted to find our suite was ready. We unpacked and were very happy with the accommodations. There was a bedroom, living room and kitchen. The thermostat showed 80 degrees, so I adjusted it to a comfortable 72 and we left to meet friends for the afternoon.
We returned around 4:00pm expecting a cool room in which to relax and change for dinner. To our surprise the thermostat again showed 80, so I called the desk and they sent up a maintenance man who checked the temperature of the air coming from the vents and found it to be a very comfortable 59 to 60 degrees. When I asked why the room hadnt cooled down in the 4 hours that we were gone, he pointed to a motion sensor mounted above the door and told us that when there is no activity in the suite, it shuts off the AC. Between 4 and 6 while we changed for dinner, the suite cooled down some, but when we returned from dinner at 9:00pm, it was 80 degrees again and did not reach 72 until midnight. There must be a timer that allows the AC to stay on at night while you sleep which is certainly big of the owners.
Since we were only staying one night, it was too much trouble to move to another hotel after we discovered that the hotel was more interested in its profits than the comfort of its guests. We have stayed in hotels all over the country and have never seen a system like this before, but we will be wary in the future, as you should be.