Should more homes have air conditioning these days?

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The 2018 heat waves are well over now. So I thought I'd post this, being in that mild interim period where most people aren't using aircon but also aren't using heating yet.

All of the UK summers since 2013 have been hotter than average, so my home mini fridge-sized aircon unit has been handy. It's a 750W unit, so if you think about it, it's about the same as a gaming PC, and it's good for a 5M x 4M room. It adds around £6 to my direct debit for half of the year before the meter adjusts my bill back down again. The yearly £36-odd is worth it imo. I use it for 4 months, late May to late Aug, then the central heating goes on for 4 months Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb. So both are equally as necessary to me. Most places in UK retail have aircon, plus cars and most trains. There are 3 areas though that don't normally have it:

- homes
- the workplace
- buses

Buses are like greenhouses when it's 25+ and the sun is out, and some people don't have an alternate commute choice. Like I'll never be able to drive a car due to low eyesight. I spent 4 days in Germany though when it was constant 25C, and a lot of the buses I went on had aircon equipped and was active.

I dunno what you guys think, but I just think it's needed more now in the UK. Should more homes have it now?
 
Associate
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Yes as I find my home gets far too hot and it's hard to sleep when it's like that but what puts me off is the cost of running AC. I wish they would make a AC device that uses less watts, they can do it in a car so its not like they can't do it.
 
Caporegime
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Yes as I find my home gets far too hot and it's hard to sleep when it's like that but what puts me off is the cost of running AC. I wish they would make a AC device that uses less watts, they can do it in a car so its not like they can't do it.

Do you know what the internal volume of a car is vs a house or even room?
 
Caporegime
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Do you know the size of my car or my room

I can tell you now unless you live in a cupboard your car will have a significantly smaller internal volume.

A Ford focus has 2.5m3 of internal volume not counting that lost by seats and other trim.

The ceiling height in a modern house is 2.1m as a minimum. Older houses significantly taller. So unless your room measures 1m x 1m it's bigger than a car. I'll give you a hint too...if it's 1m x 1m you ain't opening a door to get in.

My bedroom measures 4m x 10m and is by no means big. Thats about 40 times the volume of a car.

Now...Do you maybe want to engage your noodle and think why you need significantly more power to cool a room? Or do you want to continue posting uneducated stupidity?

Even better - just checked and a typical car aircon system requires 3kw. A 9000btu home aircon system will cool a 45m3 room for only 2.7kw. Significantly more efficient!
 
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Soldato
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We run a mobile unit (but we’ve fixed it) in the bedroom. During the last few months, with the bedroom door closed, 2 fans running constantly and the aircon kept it at 18C. Dogs loved it.

I’ve said to the mrs that next will house will have ‘proper’ aircon in most living areas.
 
Associate
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I can tell you now unless you live in a cupboard your car will have a significantly smaller internal volume.

A Ford focus has 2.5m3 of internal volume not counting that lost by seats and other trim.

The ceiling height in a modern house is 2.1m as a minimum. Older houses significantly taller. So unless your room measures 1m x 1m it's bigger than a car. I'll give you a hint too...if it's 1m x 1m you ain't opening a door to get in.

My bedroom measures 4m x 10m and is by no means big. Thats about 40 times the volume of a car.

Now...Do you maybe want to engage your noodle and think why you need significantly more power to cool a room? Or do you want to continue posting uneducated stupidity?

Even better - just checked and a typical car aircon system requires 3kw. A 9000btu home aircon system will cool a 45m3 room for only 2.7kw. Significantly more efficient!
If I say take out a ac from a car even if it cools a room down a bit using 12v its still better that using nothing and it might take longer to cool the room down but its still better than using nothing
 
Caporegime
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Proportion does not scale linear to size. That's a large bedroom. Long and narrow, no matter if it is in the north or anywhere else.

It is 2.5:1 not odd. Very usable. Allows for space either side of a super king. At the bottom of which theres a blanket box and then space before the dresser at the other end of the room. Not exactly excessive! Even if we're looking at a 4 x 6m room (about the size of the 2nd bedroom) that's still 20+ times larger than the car and can be cooled using much less power.

Worth adding our house is quite odd in some respects. 3 bed but bigger than either of our neighbours 4 beds.
 
Soldato
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I have 3 wall mounted “1.5 ton” units in my house, only cost about £300 each including installation and they heat as well as cool the house. For smaller rooms, you can get less powerful units for even cheaper. I’d never have considered one in the UK, but the heating on them as well as the cooling seems very impressive so I’m sure I’d find a use for one back home if I had one.

No idea exactly how much they cost in electricity but the ones I bought weren’t the more efficient “inverter” types and despite that, my electricity bills are virtually nothing. We use them every night and most of the weekend too.
 
Caporegime
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If I say take out a ac from a car even if it cools a room down a bit using 12v its still better that using nothing and it might take longer to cool the room down but its still better than using nothing

That makes no sense when you can buy a reasonable home unit for a few hundred pounds. Even if you buy a scrapper of a car to snaffle the system from its going to cost more. The way the car system is configured would also tend to require airflow over the rad to provide cooling. This is normally provided by movement of the car so you'd need to install a separate fan. More power to run. More cost.
 
Associate
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That makes no sense when you can buy a reasonable home unit for a few hundred pounds. Even if you buy a scrapper of a car to snaffle the system from its going to cost more. The way the car system is configured would also tend to require airflow over the rad to provide cooling. This is normally provided by movement of the car so you'd need to install a separate fan. More power to run. More cost.
Only full testing can really say that but as no one here will you cant be sure maybe someday I might try it
 
Caporegime
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Only full testing can really say that but as no one here will you cant be sure maybe someday I might try it

No. Basic thermodynamics can say that. As I've said already, typical car systems can use 3kw. Thats to cool 2.5m3.
Typical home systems use less power to cool a significantly greater volume. I've just found a 2kw system for £300 on Amazon that's suitable for a 35m3 room as an example.
No testing required. The numbers are already there.
 
Soldato
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It is 2.5:1 not odd. Very usable. Allows for space either side of a super king. At the bottom of which theres a blanket box and then space before the dresser at the other end of the room. Not exactly excessive! Even if we're looking at a 4 x 6m room (about the size of the 2nd bedroom) that's still 20+ times larger than the car and can be cooled using much less power.

Worth adding our house is quite odd in some respects. 3 bed but bigger than either of our neighbours 4 beds.

I'm not doubting it is usable, I said that it is large and the proportion is odd as in far from normal / typical. Then you said your house is odd in some respects. And described your bedroom. And second bedroom. I think we get that you love your house, and you should - by size alone it sounds great (although it is up north ;) )
 
Soldato
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My bedroom measures 4m x 10m and is by no means big.

How do you manage in such cramped conditions?


Back in reality that is a huge bedroom, maybe not the biggest but well above average, most houses in my city would be around 16m2 , my main is about 22m2 and considered big for the area
 
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