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Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

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Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#31

Post by Scoundreller »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

Lately new condo builds in Toronto will have an in-unit heat pump that fails within 5 years (and May or may not sound like a spaceship), with a coolant line going to a central unit that’ll have a geothermal/auxiliary heating/cooling loop, that also tends to fail.

All in all, a stupid system in practice. Only benefit of it all is that you don’t have to wait for the building to change between heating or cooling mode.

At least we tend to still have central hot water and don’t meter water yet. Metering can make a lot of sense, but not when your account fee is $15-$20/month. Any reduction in use just means some rich dude goes on more jet vacations.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#32

Post by gcds »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

I think it's more efficient to heat/cool single room than all house when for e.g. you spend most of the day in office/living room and then go to bed. That way you only have one AC running but of course if you have big family then it maybe makes sense but still... Those mini split AC efficiency is much higher than I have seen in US ducted systems (follow few channels) because mini splits uses inverter technology for higher efficiencies.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#33

Post by jabart »

djanogo wrote: post #4

Where are the refrigerant lines, how did they run them from compressor to evaporator?, I thought the biggest issue with AC self install is filling the refrigerant and sealing those lines.

Units come pre-charged now. My new central air unit was pre-charged at the compressor for 50ft of line. You need to still seal the lines to the unit which requires something hotter than a propane torch(acetylene), then you should purge the lines with nitrogen, have HVAC gauges to verify the pressure holds, then evac with a pump watching the gauges again. Those are some pricey one-time use tools. Some mini-splits now have DIY connectors and precharged lines to work around those issues.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#34

Post by edgarvaldes »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

>attitudes towards thrift that make it inconceivable/impossible to pay for AC that someone else might be using (or misusing)

Sounds somewhat similar to the opinion some americans have against free healtcare

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#35

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

I am not sure that it is true that split system ACs are substantially less efficient than central. And depending on the size of your unit and how much space you can leave unconditioned, it can save substantial energy to use a split solution. For example, we used space heaters during the winter in cali to save substantially on energy. This is because even with much less efficient electric heating, heating just two bedrooms at night is more efficient than heating the entire house. (We saved hundreds of dollars each winter despite that a btu from an electric heater costs two or three times as much as a btu of gas.)

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#36

Post by agwa »

gcds wrote: post #29
agwa wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen an apartment building in the US with special pipes for running the refrigerant lines. It's just not feasible to install a mini split in the US if you're renting, but it appears Japan is totally set up for it.

Impossible to live without AC in Japan. Also almost every move company can remove/install AC's pretty easily so it's kinda convient. Also if all rooms already have installed AC's then apartment rent price is much higher than similar without it so it's 50/50 what you want.

It's the same in many parts of the US, but unless the apartment comes with central AC, we're stuck with noisy and inefficient window AC units[1], or worse, portable AC units[2].

[1] https://www.mytrustedcontractor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/...

[2] https://www.lg.com/us/images/air-conditioners/md05186704/gal...

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#37

Post by Scoundreller »

kijin wrote: post #21
7thaccount wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Louisiana and Arkansas (probably several other states), the temperature can get over 100 Farenheit with super high humidity. This leads to "swamp @$$" without copious amounts of AC. Being comfortable requires AC in the home, car, and at work. In highschool gym class we would just sit in the shade under the bleachers during the summer (too hot to do anything) and be dripping sweat everywhere back in class. It was m…

We love to romanticize the past, when people supposedly did fine without energy-wasting gadgets. The oft-forgotten truth is that people in the past just died more. And still do, in many parts of the world that are surprisingly close to us.

And are/were substantially less productive.

When Singapore developed, the first thing the PM did was install A/C in all government buildings.

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan-yew...

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#38

Post by [deleted] »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

[deleted]

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#39

Post by falcolas »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

All of those images look more like heat pumps, which are actually ridiculously power efficient, especially if you're heating/cooling the rooms individually (since you're cooling only the hotspots, not the entire house to handle one hot room).

EDIT: The unit installed by the article's writer is an AC only, which is probably because the AC is cheaper than a heat pump. But a heat pump can both heat and cool, and are quite efficient.

The Google term of use is "Heat Pump Mini-Split"

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#40

Post by Spivak »

rsync wrote: post #24

Having individual heating and cooling units ( per unit gas heaters! ) is stupendously inefficient. I travel in Asia fairly regularly so this isn't new to me, but even after all of these years I can't believe I continue to see shiny, brand new "high end" condo buildings in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, etc., with individual AC units hanging out the window. Contrast this with a condo in Minneapolis that I own wher…

Whole building climate control isn't really the problem, it's that unlike electricity, there's not a good billing system attached to it like we have for eletric and gas.

Other than "it doesn't exist yet" there's nothing fundamental about central air that precludes being able to bill individual units separately based on their usage. The fairest way for a group to pay for something isn't always diving the total cost equally among the group. Can you imagine if we did that for taxes?

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