Bottle conditioning at 78°, too warm?

I've done some research on these threads and have gotten the general consensus that bottle conditioning is best at ~70°. I live in AZ and unfortunately for beer, house temps fluctuate fairly dramatically during the spring, say anywhere from 65°-68° in the evenings with doors and windows open, to 75°-80° during the day w/A.C. set at 78°. Once summer arrives, forget it, it will be no cooler than 78° in the house at all times w/some southerly exposed room temperatures warmer. Electric bills are ridiculous in the summer months so I cannot afford to turn the temps below 78°, not to mention that the A/C would just run until the sun went down at 8:30pm w/o a big difference in cooling. I think I can keep my fermentations fairly cool in my ice chest evapoartive cooler with ice bottles and wet t-shirts, but will bottle conditioning at these warmer temperatures impart off flavors? Or, will I just have carbonation sooner? I've been tempted to purchase a mini fridge or small chest freezer to ensure a stable climate for fermentation and bottle conditioning, but space is an issue right now. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

78 is fine.

olllllo, out of curiosity, how do you keep your fermentation temps down in PHX???

Craigslist!

http://www.Homebrewtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34728

I dunno what that link sends me to, but nothing I can understand. Chest freezer/fridge w/temp controller??? Just curious, because gets almost as hot here in Tucson, and similar to PHX we have very few homes w/basements or cellars, and lots of wood framed stucco homes (mine) that are warm.

Try it again.

Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply!!

I bottle condition at 78 with no problems, I can't afford to set the AC any lower than that!

During the summer, my room temp rarely drops below 80 degrees during the day if I don't want to have the A/C running nonstop. It's not ideal for long-term aging, but I haven't noticed any adverse effects on my beers that are drunk fairly quickly (within 3 months or so). I guess it's even beneficial, considering you can get full carbonation in as little as 5 days at times.

I keep my fermentation temps in check using cube coolers (with self-made styrofoam lids) that contain a water bath and twice daily additions of ice or frozen water bottles. It's easy to maintain temps as low as 64 degrees that way with swings of less than 2 degrees/day.

Thats a great idea, insulating foam top! Wouldn't have thought of it, now I wonder if you could make a foam collar out of one just like a keezer and attach the lid to that. Hmmmm...the gears are turning now!