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Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

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Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#141

Post by larrywright »

bluGill wrote: post #118
larrywright wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what is more true is that typical furnace designs remove moisture from the air that they heat. Most comfortable place I ever lived in, heating wise, was an old house that had been converted into apartments. It still had steam heat. I loved that.

A furnace doesn't remove moisture. Steam heat is radiant which feels very good. Nothing to do with moisture added, steam heat is almost always a closed loop so no water is put into the air.

Maybe modern steam heat doesn’t, but the vintage system in that house did let some steam out. But even without that, it didn’t drop the humidity like forced air heating does.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#142

Post by martinald »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #79
bserge wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but there is no such infrastructure in most of the UK, so it would be a big and expensive undertaking to build it. Individual gas/electric boilers are a pretty good solution. Maintenance isn't that hard, though legally you need a Gas Safe certified technician to do everything, and they're smug, expensive, slow, and not all that smart tbh. But because there's no competition you have to put up with that :D That wa…

For apartment blocks it's particularly silly because you can install a single device in the basement at the time of construction. Some newer blocks have it. UK housing stock is in desperate need of upgrades, most houses are literally bleeding money through the walls because of poor insulation, and because heatpumps are much more efficient that boilers. Consider that they are more economical when supplying several hou…

My new build flat in London has district heating like you describe. It's a complete nightmare and I wish I could get rid of it.

Firstly, it's incredibly expensive. There's no regulation on the price you can charge for heat, and there's no competition for supply like gas and electric. So the apartment freehold owners charge eye watering fees for it. I could save probably 50-75% a month even paying for the cost on a new boiler, plus a service package.

Secondly, there are a lot of outages. Much more than I've ever experienced with standard boilers.

The outages are quite literally out of your control, unlike a gas/electric boiler where you can get someone to fix it out of hours. One particularly bad outage was nearly 48 hours in winter over a weekend, caused by incompetent building management and a seeming inability to get highly specialised parts from Germany to the UK to fix it on a weekend.

I've obviously had normal boilers break down but usually they can be fixed in a couple of hours, at least temporarily enough to get a proper fix sorted.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#143

Post by martinald »

spockz wrote: post #95
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I moved to UK I was shocked that each house amd apartment (!) has a separate gas boiler, a device that need maintenance, takes up space, makes noise and regularly kills people with carbon monoxide. I then met a person who lost a loved one to that thing! In Russia and Czech Republic we have district heating, you just get billed for the amount of hot water consumed. Some of that heat comes from industrial sources…

District heating exists in the Netherlands as well. Even though it might be more efficient it usually is crazy expensive. I paid more for heating and hot water in my 90m2 apartment in Utrecht with two of us where we almost never were at home than for our 150m2 house with two extra kids and being at home often.

Agreed, same problem in London. It literally seems to be 4x the cost of "normal" heat (in brand new buildings).

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#144

Post by twblalock »

brendawalsh wrote: post #125
outworlder wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of these units are 220V and usually there is only one or two 220V power outlets in American homes these days and they're always dedicated to the washer+dryer. Meh. Only relevant if you need to pull more than 15A or so. There are plenty of portable air conditioners for sale in the US and most are happy with 110V and less than 15A. > HN is mostly a US based website This sounds like gatekeeping. There are lots of…

These minisplit units are typically, at least 9k to 12k BTUs, and if it a multi-zone unit it can be 24k or more. I have yet to see a portable AC in the US that is more than 12k btus and as quiet as a mini-split. Mini-splits are more popular now in the US, but, for whatever reason, the US is really into ducted systems. I never understood why putting an air duct in a hot attic and an air handler in a hot garage made an…

A lot of central AC installations in the USA were added to the house some time after it was built, and the heating ducts were already there, so now they are used as the AC ducts too.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#145

Post by twblalock »

sergers wrote: post #3

Is this really specific to Japanese air conditioners? Or is this really about mini-split ac that are manufactured around the world under many companies. I don't see whats specifically Japanese outside of the person using Panasonic and is in Japan. The person could be in the USA with Mrcool mini split, it would be a similar article. Edit: title has been changed to remove mention of Japan, so my nitpick may no longer v…

It's not uncommon for renters in Japan to provide the AC unit, the washing machine, and other appliances. The plumbing is already there for a split AC unit, but the appliance is not.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#146

Post by sfifs »

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…

New buildings built over the last couple of decades generally have provisions for keeping the outer unit of the air conditioners out of the way.

We largely use ceiling fans in Singapore. The difference in electricity bill between the couple of months with horrific heat where we use a lot of air conditioning and the rest of the months where we don't is pretty steep. A few people may want to use air conditioning all the time - so it's fair to give others a choice.

Heating on the other hand in cold countries is pretty non negotiable from what I've experienced - so centralized may work better.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#147

Post by rietta »

perennate wrote: post #131
outworlder wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of these units are 220V and usually there is only one or two 220V power outlets in American homes these days and they're always dedicated to the washer+dryer. Meh. Only relevant if you need to pull more than 15A or so. There are plenty of portable air conditioners for sale in the US and most are happy with 110V and less than 15A. > HN is mostly a US based website This sounds like gatekeeping. There are lots of…

> many countries providing supports for either split systems or, more commonly, 'window' units. I think that's what GP was saying about the US -- while window units are very common, split systems are relatively rare. But anyway I think most of the article wasn't specific to a split system A/C unit, or even air conditioners in general.

I have had a mini split system in my basement for 5 years and I am the only one I know who has one. They are around enough that Home Depot carries them and yet rare enough that many HVAC contractors do not have experience with them. It was a great retrofit for my basement office. However, my system is oversized. It is in the 90s F and high humidity outside and when I have the system set to 72, it makes the basement 64 degrees F and I have a space heater on under my desk since my computers don't put off nearly enough heat.

The relative humidity in my basement is 48% which is AMAZING for Georgia. That thing plus the dehumidifier makes it the perfect home office and pantry storage.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#148

Post by dvcrn »

I did a much easier solution for my airconditioner (also in Tokyo so everything OP said applies): I bought a broadlink rm mini3 (IR emitter) for For getting the temperature of the room, I use other devices (a netatmo weather station) and used their API to pull the current degrees into a textfile on the server that is getting fed into the airconditioner plugin.

Bonuspoint: I use the same IR emitter to control my TV. I just have to make sure it's in a place that is in line-of-sight with both my TV and aircon, but given how small apartments here are - that was not a problem. The plugin has a functionality to frequently ping an IP for checking if something is turned on, so I use that to determine whether my TV is on/off.

[0]: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-broadlink-rm

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#149

Post by wlesieutre »

dvcrn wrote: post #148

I did a much easier solution for my airconditioner (also in Tokyo so everything OP said applies): I bought a broadlink rm mini3 (IR emitter) for For getting the temperature of the room, I use other devices (a netatmo weather station) and used their API to pull the current degrees into a textfile on the server that is getting fed into the airconditioner plugin. Bonuspoint: I use the same IR emitter to control my TV. I…

You may not even need direct line of sight, as long as the TV can see what your remote is shining on. I know my remotes work from behind obstacles if I just aim them up at the ceiling.

There are also inexpensive IR repeaters, intended to let you have your AV equipment stuffed in a closet and still be able to use all the remotes.

Re: Home Office Projects Series: Air conditioner setup

#150

Post by fomine3 »

jonpurdy wrote: post #89
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…

Others have mentioned the efficiency of cooling individual rooms instead of the entire home so I'll skip that. (Not to mention that in Korea and Japan, halls are considered "outdoors" and are not heated or cooled, which is a massive waste of energy for the few seconds that people spend in the hallways.) My issue is that any place I've lived with central AC (or a condo with a fan coil unit) is that when it's actually…

Now cold halls/hallways on winter considered to health risk in Japan, so some houses getting better insulation and whole air conditioning.
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