Reply to: Anyone got A/C?

[CoolCat]

Layout of our old house means our bedroom gets full sun during the summer... rest of the house is always cool but neither of us can sleep when it's stifling.
Proper portable A/C units cost half a monkey and I wouldn't want to install a permanent unit ideally. Then there's these water-cooling things (https://www.toolstation.com/air-cool...control/p78965) but I'm dubious especially at the idea of having to load them with ice every night.

For the lower-tier contractors who don't have a butler to fan them all night, have you used any of these things?

when I lived in the states I had proper air con houses, big air con units in each room, like a bigger version of a storage heater here

though they are always too noisy for me, so I would switch it off in the room I was in and switch it back on as I left the room, and move around the rooms often enough to be kept cool, at night I would sometimes swap bedrooms for same reason

[northernladuk]

My accountant said we do have A/C payables

If he runs it off a battery he would have AC/DC

[d000hg]

Sticking aluminium foil to the window kept the bedroom nice & dark & reflected much of the spy rays outside.

FTFY

[d000hg]

I saw you can buy 2-part portable A/C which still has an external unit... though I'm a bit unclear how that's 'portable' without looking more closely.

£300 seems the going starter rate for a portable one, maybe double that for nicer ones. For someone like me (tight) that's a bit too much to buy on a whim... especially after buying the outside patio heater for lockdown which has been used exactly once.

[DoctorStrangelove]

The portable A/C I bought about 20 years ago is in the shed since this house doesn't have the problem of the sun shining into the bedroom all afternoon unlike the parents' house where it could get up to about 95 deg F with no probs whatever.

Plus I'm too mean to run it anyway.

Sticking aluminium foil to the window kept the bedroom nice & dark & reflected much of the heat back outside.

[NigelJK]

Same as per the 25kg 'mobile' ones. Go for the 12,000 BTU ones then run it on quiet mode.
We are on our second one, and tech has changed in one respect. Our old one had a pump which would empty the condensed water from the dehumidifying stage straight out the window, watering a rose in our case. This has been replaced by an evaporative stage which does a reasonable job of removing around 60% of the water. You can plug in your own pump as it has two outlets, one for dump pre-evap and one from the tank.

[AtW]

My accountant said we do have A/C payables

[d000hg]

If you have a digital camera with night vison like the old Sony, and take a look through the viewfinder you may be surprised that blackout curtains appear transparent in sunlight. I presume that blackout curtains do not stop IR and IR heat.

I'll have to check if Mrs d000hg was aware when buying, pretty sure you can get thermal ones so it might be.

[NotAllThere]

We have one for my bedroom - a portable one.. As with DaveB, we turn it on the evening and switch it off before going to bed. You can buy fabric devices that fit around a window for the venting if you don't have a suitable hole. We vent into the chimney void - it's quite effective. Since most summers we have 40°C for a week or so, it's well worth it.

Some friends of mine have an evaporative cooling unit that keeps the room a few degrees cooler than ambient.

[anonymouse]

Got a portable unit, with the outlet hose feeding into the chimney breast, which has been lined., noisy but worth it. if I was staying here, I'd go for a split unit with both heating and cooling, which is what I'm doing in the next property. Look at aircondirect.co.uk

[Fraidycat]

I bought a portable A/C unit from amazon in May last year during lockdown.
It was £220 (ex vat), its currently on for about 270 (ex vat).

Comes with a huge pipe that goes out the window.

Its great, except for the noise, quite noisy, but worth it when it gets really hot, like today.

I went for the cheapest 9000BTU one on the site at the time that had decent reviews:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burfam-cond.../dp/B08776Q6T5

Although mine doesn't have wifi so i presume the link is a newer model so more a bit more expensive than the one i got last year.

I probably didnt need 9000 BTU, the 7000 ones might have been quieter.

[DaveB]

We've got a portable AC unit that we use in the bedroom when it's needed. Most of the time it just sits in the corner but when we do need it it's a godsend. It is , however, very noisy. Most of the portable units are as the compressor for the cooling is what makes the noise and that's in the unit rather than outside as it would be in a permanent install. We tend to turn it on around 6 and leave it running till we got to bed, then turn it off.

[Halo Jones]

Over the past 15 years or so we have had all forms of AC, desk fans, water based cooling, portable AC units until finally we got "proper AC" installed about 5 years back.

Best thing we ever did!

OK so for us it was more to do with heat kicking off BGG's MS but the benefit for both of us is great.

We have one condenser (outside box fan thing) which can run 2 or 3 internal units, currently we have 2 - one in BGG study & one in the bedroom.

As I over-specced the size of the units they will cool down the whole of upstairs

I am planning a 2nd condenser for the extension & putting 2 more units (my study & workshop)

My advice is don't waste your money on half hearted attempts, bite the bullet & get a proper job done.

Also its not just for the really hot days - like today its a bit muggy, AC set to a low air circulation mode (not chilled) but makes it a lot more comfortable.

The speed the units can chill a room is miles better than the lesser units,

Oh and they have a heating function too - so if its a sudden drop in temperature, specific room heating or if the central heating is on the blink they are useful then.

[Paddy]

We have thick blackout curtains but it doesn't help much. Our house is solid brick and the bedroom wall gets full sun until mid-afternoon so I think the entire wall is just getting hot. It's a Victorian place with nice high ceilings and generally, it's lovely and cool except this one bedroom - well and the loft conversion which was 24C still at midnight, but we don't go up there!

If you have a digital camera with night vison like the old Sony, and take a look through the viewfinder you may be surprised that blackout curtains appear transparent in sunlight. I presume that blackout curtains do not stop IR and IR heat.

[xoggoth]

We have thick blackout curtains but it doesn't help much. Our house is solid brick and the bedroom wall gets full sun until mid-afternoon so I think the entire wall is just getting hot.

Same here. I keep windows open for some hours before bedtime but temperature stays much higher than outside.