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So this recent bout of hot weather has got me thinking about getting a portable air con unit for the house but I've no idea how effective they are. We have a standard 3 bedroom estate house with a loft conversion, it's hot on the first floor but it's even worse in the loft conversion. Do I need to vent it to the outside? On the middle landing we have a plug and a window so it could sit there but will it do anything for the bedrooms if it's on the landing? If it's on the landing with the window open for the vent it won't the open window just negate the work the air con unit is doing? If I get 1 big unit will it do enough for the big bedrooms on the middle floor and the loft conversion? Will it only manage to bring the heat down by 2 degrees (it's currently 30 degrees in the loft conversion)? Will it just be a waste of money? Yes, I appreciate there are green credentials but right now I just want the family to be able to sleep comfortably. Any advice is great.
It'll only do one room. I had one in 2006 during the hot spell because my wife was pregnant. We had in the living room with a board with a hole in it in the window. It kept the living room cool to sleep in.
You will definitely have to vent to the outside, since it's just a heat exchanger - like a fridge.
Had one in an office a few years back. Will only do one room and needs to vent outside, bit like a tumble dryer.
You won't die if you don't get a decent nights sleep a few nights a year.
The baby robins will die though if you use a mobile aircon unit!
Not worth it IMHO. Don't work anywhere near as well as you want them to, and only useful for a few days a year and pretty well useless on those days.
Better off with a desk fan and a bowl of frozen water, won't appreciably cool the room but can blow colder air over you as you sleep which works remarkably well.
a bowl of frozen water
AKA, "ice." (-:
I know, smartarse. But a bowl of ice sounds like a bowl of ice cubes which'll melt too fast. I mean get a bowl of water and put it in the freezer and freeze it into one piece. A bowl of frozen water.
Very effective for the bedrooms. I have 7000btu and make the room very cool in the evening. They do have to vent out of a window. Never found the water ice machines anywhere as good as an air con unit. I'd pay just to have it for the few days a year for a decent nights sleep.
We just got cheap tower fans from Argos, makes a world of difference.
I used to have one, even drilled a hole in the wall to vent it (south facing bedroom with a dark coloured house, was bonkers hot). Venting through a 2ondow didn't work as warm air just flooded back in.
With the hole sorted it Would cool the room fine, definitely wouldn't cool more than that.
Obvs in the winter you need to stuff insulation in the hole!
Ours worked great year 1 and some of year 2 and then was just a noisy fan.
Replaced by a mahooosive 20" noisy fan that I thought I could never sleep through but nodded off in cool luxury after about 10 minutes.
The only problems is that if I stick my toes out of the bottom of the quilt* and lift it too much the air flow can get underneath and we end up with the whole quilt floating above the bed separated from us by a fast moving stream of air.
I am sure that is interesting to F1 engineers and hovercraft designers but requires a swift kick in the quilt to disturb the airflow to keep the quilt on the bed.
*it is only actually the quilt cover because apparently 1 sheet is too cold but 2 sown together is fine
we end up with the whole quilt floating above the bed separated from us by a fast moving stream of air.
I get the same after Christmas dinner. Mmm, sprouts.
I thought about one. But then I'd only need it for 1 week a year. Bought some bike tires instead.
We've had one at least 15 years and it's still going. You vent to the outside, so we have it on the landing venting out of the bathroom window. Put towels over the Bannister to keep the cold air upstairs. It's enough to cool 3 rooms if angled carefully.
They are not quiet though - positively noisy, but you do get used to it.
We do use ours a fair bit as the side of the house where two bedrooms are is south facing, and it's a relatively modern house, so get's quite a lot of heat soak and you can feel the heat from the walls after a number of warm days.
My neighbours bought a proper external AC unit back from Spain and stuck it on the outside of their house.
We live in NW England so I doubt they use it much, but they're probably feeling pleased with themselves now.
I'd just avoid the loft conversion and keep the windows open and curtains closed, but I'm aware I may be lucky that I don't have a particularly hot house.
They work okay.
Apparently the dual pipe ones (which take input from outside as well as the normal exhaust) are the ones to get, but I've not seen any in stock in the UK.
There is a bitter irony in more people buying AC as the planet heats up.
What about an evaporative air cooler instead (per room)? Just a fan blowing over a bowl of water with freezer blocks in it really. Much quieter and less environmentally unfriendly than AC and comparatively cheap. Thinking about getting one myself.
Apparently the dual pipe ones (which take input from outside as well as the normal exhaust) are the ones to get, but I’ve not seen any in stock in the UK.
Depends to an extent. A single hose means you have a draught of air coming into the room to replace the heated air it's blowing out. Makes it harder to keep something like a single roomed outbuilding cool. But in the house it'll probably work well enough and means the air's fresh.
I've had to work in a portacabin with AC and it gives me a headache after a while as you're just sat in a sealed box full of cool dry air.
Don't be tempted to put the unit in another room though, that just ends up trying to cool down the hot air in there to a comfortable temperature to blow into the room rather than just trying to maintain the rooms temperature.