Hope this helps someone struggling to survive the heat
I’ll have to get one at some point. It just seems a lot for the one week a year it’s needed.
Pretty spent this heatwave with a damp cloth wrapped around an ice pack and stuffed under my plums. Working from home is no fun when it’s 35C in your room. I even stole the cat’s cooling mat at one point (she hated it anyway) to use as a pillow.
It’s not just for cooling. It is very efficient at heating and warms up the whole room very quickly.
In the winter we would wake up to a pre-warmed room. Didn’t bother turning on the whole house central heating. The wife and I would get dressed in this room (and attached bathroom) and then quickly grab a hot drink and toast from the kitchen and leave the house, and then you save on heating the whole house in the morning. We would also turn off central heating really early in the evening. The house retains heat till we were ready to just chill in the bedroom, and then if it felt too chilly we could turn on the AC heating for a little while. My wife was using an electric fan heater every night despite central heating anyway and needed a blast of extra heating in the bedroom when she always felt particularly cold. Between getting this AC, buying my wife an electric blanket and changing to an electricity tariff that gives quarter price overnight (it costs almost nothing to run this overnight on hot nights)… A friend in a similar sized house has been amazed that our energy bills are one third of his (although we are particularly frugal with energy (15 min of water heating is all we need in 24 hours) and they are particularly bad with energy (overheating central heating and then opening their windows in winter!)).
I have a portable AC for the main part of my house and a window unit in my bedroom. Where I live in the US it is literally a necessity. People without AC can get heat stroke and die in their own homes here in the hotter parts of the summer
I installed both AC and solar panels when heat got too dangerous for my kids.
Yes, many everyday problems can be solved with money, money were literally invented for that exact purpose. Other problems can be solved with time, for example - trees need a fuckton of time to grow, but I still replaced most of the grass in my garden with trees and bushes. I will most likely never rest under their shade in my life, but is that really important to see the benefits fast?
A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.
There’s a ton of variants of this, and saying (in a form or another) apparently goes back to 1700s.
Mark Twain, actually.
That particular quote is from D. Elton Trueblood. Mark Twain said “The best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. The second best time is now.”. A bit different twist, but the same idea.
There’s also (alledeg) Indian proverb: “Blessed is he who plants trees under whose shade he will never sit.”. And many other variations of the same over the last 300 years or so.
Hmmm wasn’t there also chinese proverb that said “plan for a year? - rice, plan for ten years? - orchard, plan for 100 years? - education”
I was actually being faeticious, pointing out how half of the quotes in the internet are attributed to Mr. Clemens, half to Groucho Marx, and half to Tsun Zu.
The new climate denial? Using wealth to insulate yourself from discomfort and change
Converting electricity into heat via silicon (ironically data centers turn electricity into heat with incredible efficiency) then moving that heat outside with HVAC units (heat exchangers again, the best way to move heat outside).
Then this sunufabich buys an ac
wow a shocking amount of people here have no idea how AC works
It actually does require some basic knowledge of thermodynamics. Many people think “there are space heaters, so why not space coolers?” The reality is that the heat needs to be pumped out of the room (meaning hot air needs to be vented to the outside of the building).
It makes the air cold. What’s there to understand?
It makes the room cold unfortunately to make the room cold you have to whack a sodding great hole in your wall. You explain that to the landlord who doesn’t care about your comfort, but they could care immensely about the wall having a hold on it.
It makes the air cold. What’s there to understand?
With that logic, leaving your refrigerator door open should cool the room. But doing so would actually heat it up.
Yes because the job of the refrigerator is to extract heat from the small area and dump it out the back. An air conditioner is the same thing but it is designed to extract heat from the entire room and dump it outside.
The problem is unless you have ducted heating all that’s going to do is cool one room. UK homes aren’t built with ducted heating. So the best you can get away with is one room cool and everything else is still unbearably hot. All of which is assuming that the landlord is ok with me punching sodding great holes in the wall. Even for people who own their own homes the cost isn’t worth it, it’s incredibly expensive to buy an air conditioning system in the UK and then literally no one knows how to fit them. Isn’t just a matter of buying one.
whack a sodding great hole
Ours have a hole about 50mm in diameter. It’s not going to bring your wall down and if you decide that you don’t need the efficient heating/cooling with minisplit-unit it’s easy enough to patch. I own the house, so I didn’t need to think nothing else than the location of the hole, but any sensible landlord would see a minisplit-unit as an increase of property value.
A sensible landlord would recognise that yes but only if they got to keep the air conditioning system. Realistically though the tenant would probably want to take it with them when they left after all they bought it. And the landlord might not want the owners to be on them to buy it off the tenant when the tenant leaves.
In a sensible world landlord would purchase the unit in the first place for tenant. It’s somewhat common in here that if you want to use your own time and effort to make your (rental) home nicer the landlord pays for the materials. It’s commonly used for things like paint or wallpaper, but replacing kitchen kabinets or other bigger renovations are not unheard of either.
But yeah, that’s obvious issue which should be resolved before installing anything. I wouldn’t buy 1000+€ unit as a gift for the landlord. And you’ll likely need a permit or two before drilling trough apartment walls anyways.
I wish I could upvote this 100x.
Do y’all not have windows?
Not the type you’re thinking of. We have windows that open like doors rather than the American style guillotine things, which have always struck me as inherently unsafe, but I suppose it does have that one benefit.
Let me fix that for you. A shocking number of Europeans have no idea how AC works.
The northern half, basically. Down south we very well do. What a lot of people are unaware of is that an air source split costs peanuts, and lowers your heating bills
like 300-400%. Yeah not 30, 300%300-400% higher efficiency, Lowers your bills by 2/3.
300% reduction would mean you no longer pay for heating and instead get paid twice as much as you used to pay
Don’t bring maths and shit here!
What I actually meant to write was 300 % more efficient, 1/3 the cost.
But yeah, it’s bad etiquette to correct strangers, especially when you are right.
I figured it was something like that haha just curious what angle you were coming from
So you volunteer to fund one for me and convince my landlord and the mayor to allows its installation ?
Don’t forget you need the compressor installed outside too!
So? If you want a fireplace you need a chimney.
Everyone knows what a fireplace is.
Unfortunately I bought a portable unit for my room. My reasoning, rooms gets to 38c and sleepless nights could mean sleeping through alarms, future health concerns and also, this heat won’t be going down any time soon.
Portable units are serviceable. Not nearly as good as split airco units but you can make them better by adding a second hose.
The air inlet for cooling the compressor needs to draw air in from outside instead of from the room the unit is in.
Portable units are absolute shit. For a little more you can buy a split like the OP’s picture, that is an Air source heat pump, which is 3 to 4 times more economical to run than any other heat source. Plus they can run off solar panels, if the roof is yours.
Thing is if you’re renting you don’t really have the freedom to install those units. And since AC is only really needed a few days per year it’s good enough.
I’d also much rather get the one from the OP but my options are limited.
I have just one thing to say: 🖕
that’s only half of it
Shit, really? Wow, I’m on the edge of my seat waiting to find out the rest.
The electricity bill I’m guessing.
No, it’s a split ac, the other half is literally out of the picture(hopefully out of tne house)
Protip: condensers function better when its cooler. You can save money by putting the condenser in the neighboring, air-conditioned apartments.
Which is why most people cant get one of these because their landlords are shitheads.
They make portable minisplits now.
As far as I know they are mosty designed for vertically sliding windows, uncommon in Europe. For american style sliding windows a think they are brilliant.
That’s not really a portable AC, or even a minisplit. I am talking about a portable AC with two parts (thus called a split unit), one for the outside that dumps the heat, and one on the inside blowing cool air. They are connected with flexible pipes.
Or just portable, single unit ACs. I got one of those recently.
It blasts hot air through a duct that hopefully you’re able to direct outside while preventing outside air from getting in. Also noisy as heck, since the full unit is inside the house, and not as efficient as split units, but they do work…
Portables are hot garbage. Get a proper air source wall split. Cheap and immensly cheaper as a heat source that anything you use right now.
while preventing outside air from getting in
If that worked you’d slowly turn your dwelling into a vacuum chamber :-)
The same volume of air will enter your home in one way or the other, the important bit is that it’s cooler than the exhausted air. In particular you don’t want the hot exhaust to recirculate back in.
Ideally you’d get medium warm air from another room into yours, and warm outside air into an unoccupied room.
Yeah those are much more common and way cheaper, but also much less efficient.
„Nicht verfügbar“
Yeah with the current heatwave that’s to be expected. Just get one during fall or winter, and be ready for the next year.
I see, like a heat pump.
Yes, ac is a heat pump that can only work in one direction of cooling.
Not necessarily, a lot can reverse and pump the heat inside
Beware that those things do not bring fresh air in, so if you close windows shut the Co2 levels would rise rather quickly and elevated co2 levels are linked to decreased cognitive abilities. I’d suggest running them with windows open if you can afford it.
EDIT: Whoa, so many downvotes and arguing. Guys, get yourself a co2 meter. You will be surprised.
If that’s how your home was designed to be that tight, it was poorly designed.
Back in the 1980s or 90s, architects and engineers tried to design and build buildings as tight and efficient as possible. They quickly discovered that such buildings made people sick. They now design buildings to exchange a proscribed amount of air every hour to prevent what you are describing from happening.
So, if your home is properly designed and built, then it’s going to “leak” enough air per hour to keep the air heathy for habitation.
Your house isn’t that air tight rofl.
It’s not, that’s why people dont suffocate indoors, you get tiny bit of fresh air in, a tiny bit of stale air out, so it has to stabilize eventually, but the level at which it’ll end up will definitely be in the impairment range. Brain fog, fatigue, heavy breathing, trouble concentrating, that kind of stuff.
Even if it was, your lungs aren’t that really efficient either.
what?
Efficiency?
I guess the raw materials that you put into your lungs come out mostly unchanged. When compared to say a fire I guess. Did that help?
I don’t see what it has to do with anything. I guess you’re implying that by merit of lungs being less efficient the composition of air doesn’t matter as much, but it very much does, you dont want any toxic gases nor components being too high or too low, just like you wouldn’t want piss in your gas tank regardless if it’s a new or old car.
Buildup of co2 in a home comes from the people living in it. That blower unit is literally just moving the air around. It doesn’t add or take away anything but heat energy.
I’m not claiming that AC units emit Co2 (other than at power plants).The problem is with closing windows and doors. I guess people see thing on the wall blowing cold air and assume it’s coming from outside, which it is not, and skip on airing the room they’re in, which, while not immediately hazardous, has detrimental health effects.
Oh yeah? Then what do you do in the winter? Your heater doesn’t bring in fresh air either. Do you keep the windows open and let all your heat out?
Also what other air conditioners are you comparing against? Because window units also keep the air compressor outside the window with a barrier between the inside part, which takes in air from the room.
All HVAC systems recirculate the inside air, without bringing in fresh air. So please elaborate on which cooling method you would use during these 30°C/100°F days we have to stay cool?
All HVAC systems recirculate the inside air, without bringing in fresh air.
You’re wrong on that one. Ducted air conditioning systems do bring fresh air in, as well as positive inflow and heat recovery ventilation systems.
Not all of them do. It’s mostly industrial units designed to bring in air to create a slightly positive indoor air pressure.
I don’t understand your statement. I can have the windows closed all day with no AC and not worry about rising co2 levels. Why would it be different with this device running and circulating air? It’s not like it emits co2.
This looks like a wall mounted monoblock so you would be right
but if it’s a split device with an outside unit, it does actually bring in fresh air.This is wrong, split units dont bring in fresh air either. The only setup that consistently brings in outside air is a monoblock with 2 ducts. Either way, I’m pretty sure running an AC with the windows open is never good advice even if you can afford it.The only point of concern would be if you have a gas heater for water etc. in your apartment and run a monoblock AC with just one exhaust hose blowing hot air outside while sucking in new air from the inside. In that case, the negative pressure created by the AC can potentially pull gas that would usually go out the chimney into your apartment.
I can have the windows closed all day with no AC and not worry about rising co2 levels
That’s the thing about co2, you don’t really notice it unless at extreme levels, but it definitely affects you, at pretty much all levels.
split device with an outside unit, it does actually bring in fresh air
That’s the common misconception. The lines running between minisplit units are for refrigirant, not air. It’s essentially a fridge without a box, with the room where theyre mounted becoming the box instead.
Why would it be different with this device running and circulating air? It’s not like it emits co2.
It doesn’t. It’s just that people who run AC’s usually shut everything closed and then exhale all that co2, which in an ordinary room with just 1 person in takes <1hr to reach noticeable impairment levels. AC or not, ventilation is important.
The only point of concern would be if you have a gas heater for water etc
You’re probably thinking about carbon monooxide, not carbon dioxide?
That’s the common misconception. The lines running between minisplit units are for refrigirant, not air. It’s essentially a fridge without a box, with the room where theyre mounted becoming the box instead.
You’re right I was wrong about that, sorry lol.
It doesn’t. It’s just that people who run AC’s usually shut everything closed and then exhale all that co2, which in an ordinary room with just 1 person in takes <1hr to reach noticeable impairment levels. AC or not, ventilation is important.
You might be right but I am certainly not opening my windows once an hour during winter, if that’s the standard then we’re all screwed by the time we go to bed with the windows closed. I don’t think this problem is significant enough to justify running an Air Conditioner with the windows open…
You’re probably thinking about carbon monooxide, not carbon dioxide?
Yes, I am. As that is the only “real” concern I see with AC’s and gas buildup. As I said co2 is just not a big enough issue to justify not getting an AC or letting it run out the window. Regularly airing out should be common sense, but I think once or twice a day is regular enough for the average apartment
You might be right but I am certainly not opening my windows once an hour during winter, if that’s the standard then we’re all screwed by the time we go to bed with the windows closed. I don’t think this problem is significant enough to justify running an Air Conditioner with the windows open…
Just to be clear, I dont mean wide open, just a litte slit to let some air in, which should be totally enough to keep levels below 1000ppm. If you’re just airing twice a day you get to 450-ish briefly but it jumps back in an hour or two and you spend the rest of the time somewhere in the 1500-3000ppm range. And I feel that about winter, yeah, it’s either warmth or fresh air, gotta choose one. Not even heaters can spare one from annoying cold breeze. But in summer it’s at least avoidable. Whole point is, even right now where I am, whenever I go anywhere, I see AC’s set to some stupid low settings, like 18C or lower, so the places are colder than they are during winter, but the air is so stale I feel like I could swim in it, which is arguably even more wasteful than running AC straight out the window. But it’s so hard to get the point across to people, especially the oxygen-deprived ones inside those places…
CO2 always builds up in the room with no airflow, and when jt gets above 1000 PPM it starts causing fatigue.
And how exactly does an AC intensify this issue? Because lets be real it’s not really a problem people usually face in their daily lives. Some people leave their windows closed for days during the winter (Which is also bad because of mold etc. but thats another story). Most places are not nearly well insulated enough for it to be a problem. And if it was a problem, having an AC device or fan that circulates the air and evens out the co2 levels across the house would actually help alleviate it somewhat
It doesn’t. They said “if you close the windows”, although leaving the doors open and opening one window slightly will get CO2 down significantly.
one window slightl
Bad solution. Like in winter, open the windows fully and exchange all the air when needed. A slightly open window is very inefficient.
There’s ductless mini split units that bring in fresh air?
Comment deleted because it was a load of nonsense
Comment deleted because it was a load of nonsense
LOL! I was just about to “well, akshually” you about minisplit design!
I’d suggest running them with windows open if you can afford it.
With that attitude you can also justify private jets. It’s obscene to intensify global warming unnecessarily by wasting energy like this to escape global warming.
Surely that emits a lot of bad stuff into the atmosphere especially during a heatwave? Can’t be very good for the environment!
It works similar to a fridge with the inside of the fridge being your apartment and the outside being, well, the outside. All it does is circulate air over a heat sink filled with a refrigerant, which never leaves the system; it does not emit anything.
The fact that the power it uses comes from burning fossil fuels instead of green energy is really not the consumers fault and is part of the reason why the demand for these devices is skyrocketing in the first place (It’s getting hotter because of the climate change)
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Sure, but the inside and the outside of your house aren’t different universes, the heat that your fridge emits still gets out into the world. Dense urban areas with widespread AC units can indeed be slightly hotter than if there were no AC’s. We’re talking in the ballpark of 1-2°C. That shouldn’t be a big issue for the local environment. And that heat is not what’s causing climate change. Climate change is caused by greenhouse gasses, not by heat-emitting electrical devices
Eh, technically both contribute. Heat from electrical devices still gets dumped into the environment, and a good portion of that electricity is produced with greenhouse gasses (coal or oil-fired power plants).
Generally, though, yeah, the heat from running AC (or, say, a desk fan) is miniscule compared to other factors.
The heat from electrical devices are basically negligible compared to what the sun beams into the planet, otherwise solar panels would be physics defying.
The problem has always been greenhouse gases causing the sun heat to escape slower than we collect them.
Your phrasing of “a lot of bad stuff” sounded like you were saying that AC puts out chemicals or something.
No, but many air conditioners make racist social media posts, aggressively catcall female passerby, and support child marriage.
I mean the electricity which powers it does. The unit itself does not, unless it was installed with a leak, in which case it won’t work for very long.
Lol
Billionaires who want to boil the proles alive hate this one trick
I’m going to leave this running and open the Windows for a little while. Hope that helps all you folks out there.
How considerate. For instance, my friend’s Internet went out today. I mailed him a cup of Internet, he should be good to go on Monday when it arrives.
You’re doing gods work sir
They make my 2 fav things: air conditioners and the lancer evo final
Evo VI TME needs a word.
Source: I am old.
Oh that one can have a word with me anytime! Honestly id be happy with any Lancer
Any lancer or any evo specifically?
Because the standard lancer is pretty boring
My dream car (that i could most realistically get) is the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Final Edition 2016. I love Mitsubishi’s transmission and there’s just something about how the Lancer Evo Final looks. I love rally and ideally i’d love the Mitsubishi Lancer WRC (or anything from the Group B Rally era lol)
Forester XT SG ( STi if possible) would like a word. Actually the SF with the manual transmission and the high/low lever that worked in all speeds (effectively 8 speed manual, if you knew how to use it, with the most forgiving AWD) was a fucking blast. I owned one, and it was a blast. A soccer-mom-looking station wagon/early SUV that would humble BMWs daily.
so you’re making the rest of us hotter >:(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
You can always plant more trees, paint all the buildings brighter colors, live underground, or move north?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_daytime_radiative_cooling
PDRC can be contrasted with conventional compression-based cooling systems (e.g., air conditioners) that consume substantial amounts of energy, have a net heating effect (heating the outdoors more than cooling the indoors), require ready access to electric power and often employ coolants that deplete the ozone layer or have a strong greenhouse effect.
Yikes.
Heating the outdoors more than cooling the indoors
Yeah by like 400W which is peanuts compared to what the sun is doing
Also: if a big box store with high ceilings is going to cool the entire building to 68F, I’m not going to fret over cooling my modestly-sized home.
“Someone alread took a shit in the victims head so its okay if i piss on his leg no?”
A shit in the victim’s head? That’s rough.
A typical air conditioner consumes 1kW, and on top of that heats the outside by however much the inside is cooled.
and on top of that heats the outside by however much the inside is cooled.
Yeah but that heat is merely redistributed, it’s not like it’s adding to the total temperature
I don’t get the downvotes when you’re literally correct.
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Air conditioning is literally just moving heat from one space to another even at scale the air conditioning from homes is not enough to make any meaningful difference.
Now if we want to get pedantic the stress that it puts on electrical grids that are not decarbonized and have to fire up natural gas and coal plants harder sure it is technically making everything else hotter
So if we ignore everything but the actual physical heat coming out of the radiator then yes, it’s really not that much, but unfortunately these units do not exist in a vacuum, and instead contribute to 3% of global emissions.
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Dunno about your country but mine is far from 100% reneable
100% renewable, nuts. I’d actually be thrilled just to get back to 1990s levels of coal and oil-based power plants. Even that seems so far out of reach as to be a fantasy, though.
Exactly
I’m running my air con in reverse cycle so the outside bit gets cold. Just doing my part to help offset old mates selfishness 🫡
What is that?
Its called a heat pump or mini split. Really well made system for air conditioning.
Becoming more common in the states. Rest of the developed world already uses them.
Central air conditioning, but designed better. It services individual rooms instead of taking the temperature of the entire house from one location and then distributing based on that.
I consider these superior to central air due to its ability for zone control.
That would depend on just how many zones you want to control. If you have multiple rooms then you will need multiple mini splits. That adds up real fast. And multiple minis are more expensive to operate and maintain than one central HVAC system. Plus doors can be closed and duct vents can be adjusted easily.
Got you, a fancy cold-blowy box :)
I think I’ve seen one of those once in an office somewhere - though I feel like that one blew out warm air instead/as well (I may be mistaken).
Fun fact about air conditioning units. They are basically a glorified heat pump. And many of the newer units that are being produced can pump heat into the house as well as pumping it out of the house.
That’s not just a fun fact - it’s a useful fact :)
