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Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

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Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#241

Post by iso1631 »

ux266478 wrote: post #156
iso1631 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Install 8kWp of solar panel on your roof (£5k), add a battery (£3k) and AC (£3k) Charge the battery from the solar and it powers the AC in the evening. You'll generate more than enough during the day to run AC and fill the battery to run it overnight. Still using grid sources in winter, but you aren't using the AC. Although you might find air-air AC in heat mode is better than your gas boiler.

More or less the only people who can do that in Europe are rich people with detached homes in the suburbs, which is a vanishingly small minority. European governments could do a lot more to invest in photovoltaics, but it's a bit complicated with how cramped the continent is. You can replace farmland, but that seems like a really bad idea with Globalism's decline. Who knows what's going to happen to the food supply c…

Plenty of semis and terraces have solar. Including the semis I can see out the window right now.

In the UK Semi, Terrace and Detached is about 75% of households and 80% of people.

If you look only at owners it's about 90% of households (and even higher for population)

And anyone who owns a home is rich. If you can afford 300k for a house you can afford 15k on reducing your electric bill.

Now rental of course is a separate matter, and the real problem.

As housing is so constrained landlords can extract all the money from tenants regardless of the quality, but even if it isn't, renters tend not to value things like solar or aircon. You can spend £10k adding solar to a house, but you probably aren't going to get enough from extra rent to offset the cost of installing it.

In the US a property owner has to provide AC because renters will expect it, same as you have to provide a washing machine connection in a rented place. This is a mindset thing which can't be changed.

In other European countries, but its not changing. Among owner-occupiers its France 80% houses, Germany and Austria 70%.

However the rental issue is far more in those countries, where nearly half the country live in rental. Things like balcony solar work well there, and they can power a portable AC.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#242

Post by numpad0 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #64

I've been thinking for a while about whether it would be feasible to produce an affordable 'personal cooling chamber' for lower income people in places getting scorched in the summer that don't have A/C. Basically an automotive air conditioning unit hooked up to a battery and solar panel, with a tanning bed type form factor (up to maybe capsule hotel size), painted or coated to reflect light & heat. Highly portable.…

The compressor unit is just too big and heavy for that. COP is too low for Peltier cooling elements(aka Thermo-Electric Coolers). First generation of those will be/are based on regular ice of H2O or a frozen coolant pack with some engineered high temperature ice; H2O is going to be more convenient since they can be drank and replaced.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#243

Post by yourusername »

michelsedgh wrote: post #206
kalleboo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs use less energy than ICE cars, they are more efficient.

Most EV chargers are burning gas to charge the ev cars. Thats just wasting energy. Almost any fast charger ive used has a gas generator next to it.

And no fast charger i've ever used had a gas generator next to it. Even if it were true (and in the EU it is definitely not) DC fast charging is only small percentage of EV charging.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#244

Post by raincom »

piskov wrote: post #230
raincom wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't say "less power consumption". Definitely, not more consumption if efficient controls and motors are used (ECM motors for air handlers, VFD compressors). The real problem is the repair costs of these advanced units in the developed countries. Carrier wanted $8k for a new control board for a residential unit in the US. Same thing for ECM/VFD.

There is nothing “advanced” about this. It is just cooling the air below the dew point. Same water tray and a hose for water condensate.

"advanced" is about motors (blower motor and compressor) and their controls. The context is repairs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqzEIPEky1s

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#245

Post by raincom »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #217
Yizahi wrote: post #202

I also find deeply and even extremely ironic, that the same greenwashing radicals who bash ACs in Europe are then supporting "heat pumps" as a modern and efficient heating device. There are even programs labelled as Eco or green or whatever the jargon of the day is, to subsidize or finance heat pumps. People are seemingly unaware that heat pumps are just an AC with a tiny additional valve in the pipes :) .

Heat pumps are just ACs with a lot more energy efficiency. How does that make people hypocrites?

They just buy slogans from those who espouse efficiency.

In a traditional AC unit, heat is produced by either electric strips or by a gas burner, no refrigeration circuit is involved in the heating cycle. So, just a blower motor runs, compressor (and condenser fan) never runs in the heating cycle.

In heat pumps, refrigeration circuit does both heating and cooling. So, compressor works in both cycles.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#246

Post by peri-cl »

walthamstow wrote: post #59
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #3

> Several countries require AC installation to be approved by the equivalent of a homeowners association or impose noise ordinances that increase compliance costs and paperwork. This is not unique to ACs. Anything on the outside of a building requires your co-owners to agree.

Not in the land of the free, Great Britain. You can put anything on your house, even a 25ft fibreglass shark diving into your loft.

Wait, is there a story behind—oh, here it is:

https://www.headingtonshark.com/Home/About ("Hello. I'm Magnus Hanson-Heine, the home-owner of the Headington Shark House. The Shark House, formally titled Untitled 1986, consists of a 25ft-long fibreglass and steel shark crashing through the roof of an otherwise ordinary house on a quiet residential street in suburban Oxford...")

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#247

Post by Markoff »

deanc wrote: post #4

We have those stupid regulations in Finland about how the outside of our apartments buildings should look - meaning you cannot put the condenser visibly on the outside of the building. I've heard stories of residents being scalded for putting flowers on their balcony railings that face outwards as it ruins the "look". Given almost all apartment buildings are built consistently between every floor they could ensure co…

if you have balcony you could hide multisplit unit under railing

if you don't want permanent installation there are not basically mobile split units like Midea Portasplit, it's basically same thing you would install on the wall, but mobile on the wheels (personally I have regular AC (Toshiba) and my multisplit unit is on the flat roof invisible from the street, this year neighbor floor below me installed his unit on the roof as well, we are the only 2 apartments in two units with 40 apartments in total with AC, so much for Prague AC statistics, though honestly even under the roof in 35C+ temperatures it was not that bad prior turning on the AC)

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#248

Post by Markoff »

numpad0 wrote: post #240
margor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most of the buildings from communism era - all the utilities run through the apartments anyway and there is absolutely no place or way to retrofit these utilities without extensively either re-doing it from scratch, or trying to somehow retrofit it on the outside. All of these options are a non-starter considering basic AC starts from $500. Why should anyone invest more than that?

Permissions and structural concerns aside, you only need one 65mm/2.5" hole in the wall to run the high/low pressure gas lines, a drain hose, and a power cable, plus couple more non-penetrating drill holes on the wall to mount the inside and outside units. You'll need a hole saw attachment on a drill, a vacuum pump to thoroughly dry out the system, and bits of plastic putty to fill the hole against intrusion. It's a…

you don't really need drain hose for outside multisplit unit, my AC drain hoses from all indoor units are connected to my WC tank, I used previously pumps to push the water to the roof, but they were not reliable and once after thunderstorm they died when I finally went for passive solution, should have done it from the beginning)

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#249

Post by krunck »

bob1029 wrote: post #172
iso1631 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I set my thermostat to 65F in August. Ouch, that's far too cold for me in the UK. I have the house at 20C during the day (68F), and only drop to 18C (64F) at night. When I had poor insulation that meant heating was regularly on 8 months a year, although it's on less now I live in a well insulated house.

The point is that 65F is an unattainable temperature which results in the unit never shutting off. My pathetic 3-ton system cannot actually reach set point when the delta is 35+ degrees.

What kind of insulation does your home have?
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