I know there's at least one person on this forum who purports to know about air con stuff... With the UK heat wave showing no signs of abating, the other half, who works from home, has suggested we get some sort of aircon for home, in particular for his study (upstairs, south facing, at the back of the house, unpleasantly hot the last couple of weeks) and our bedroom (opposite corner of upstairs at the front of the house). From his internet searching so far, it seems there are 3 main options: (a) portable, stand alone unit (which presumably has a big fat hose that has to be shoved out the window to take the hot air away (relatively cheap, possibly noisy, but could be moved from one room to another if necessary); (b) the sort of thing you see in offices & hotel rooms with an ugly box bolted to the wall inside the room to be cooled, blowing cool air into the room, connected by an insulated pipe to another ugly box with a fan bolted to the outside wall of the building (more expensive and permanent than (a), but we would imagine less expensive than (c),but would need different pairs of ugly boxes if more than one room to be cooled) (c) system with the actual machinery up in the loft with pipes leading to vents e.g. in the ceilings of the upstairs rooms to be cooled (looks better than (a) or (b), one bit of cooling machinery in the roof could serve several upstairs rooms, but a much more involved and presumably expensive installation process). I would assume that given the current heat wave, any companies which instal/maintain aircon will be rushed off their feet, so if we did decide to go for something involving permanent installation by an HVAC, it couldn't happen any time soon. One possibility might be to get a relatively cheap portable unit to tide us over until a more grown up system could be installed. Anyone had any experience with having any of the above type systems installed at home? Any tips on what to look for, reputable companies or things not to do, companies/products to avoid like the plague? Any ballpark figures on what this stuff should cost?
Hotels and offices vary between 4 pipe fan coils and refrigerant based systems. The loft one I'd shy away from unless you have an acoustic ceiling as the condenser can be noisy. A generic split dx system would likely be cheapest, with an indoor wall mounted unit and an external condenser that you can put somewhere outside where noise is abated. Personally, I'd just fit external shutters, blinds or shading like they do on the continent for 1000yrs. Stop the sun getting in is easier than dealing with the radiant heat. Dont begin think shutter or curtains or blinds indoors are the same as the ones fitted outside. As the sun just heats these up until they become radiators. All you do is change the energy from one form to another. The energy has still gotten in. Minus 5% or so. You may also apply an external film to the glazing to reduce its g-value. This is a ratio of thermal transmittance. Normal glass, circa 0.78. Low E, circa 0.68. But some films can lower it to 0.3 reasonably. May be cheaper than ac and more sustainable.
tell him he could buy a 1098R at least for the money. very likely a v4 speciale. Put some wooden shutters up.
The house next door to us has four (yes four!) air conditioners fitted to the side of their house (option b)!!! To be fair we bought our house on that basis and probably got the house for at least £30K less because of them.... The funny thing is that one of the units is now broken and needs replacing but they can't because planning laws wouldn't now allow them to have more than one. Meanwhile the leylandii is growing like billy-ho so we don't have to look at them. So worth checking with the council planning dept. Neil
When we had our windows fitted a couple of summers ago they ballsed up the sizing and we ended up having the window void filled with ply till the correct glass came. That room was like a fridge so I'm totally behind you on this. Its one of the reasons I got wooden blinds instead of ally venetian blinds as they do a reasonable job of blocking some heat from soaking through. Instead of aircon you could look at evaporative coolers. No donkey dick hose to shove through windows, and it also means you can still have windows open for fresh air. I use one which I fill up with chilled water with crushed ice in it. Its also better for those with respiratory problems rather than aircon which dries you out. It won't cool the air, but you get a nice chilled breeze. They quite like them in oz apparently.
no chance. The heat has caused the airconditioning unit (actually make that anything with the word cooler in it) buying frenzy equivalent of the winter snowflake warning = bread and Milk.
Wow... I missed this one. I think I was uber busy. To avoid a spat with dippy the dinosaur I'll pm you tomorrow and answer each question in turn.
