Hi,

Looking for a cheap but good (for the price) aircon unit. I'm expecting to
have to have a big pipe traling out of the window, but if that can be
avoided so much the better.

Something available on the high street would be good.

Any good/bad experiences?

Cheers,

Fred.

"Fred Finisterre" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Looking for a cheap but good (for the price) aircon unit. I'm expecting to
have to have a big pipe traling out of the window, but if that can be
avoided so much the better.

Something available on the high street would be good.

Any good/bad experiences?

Cheers,

Fred.
Hi Fred

I bought a Homebase one for £150 last year does me fine but clearly not as
good as the 2 part ones as it doesn't recycle the air in the room but draws
warm air from outside.
Also when in full cooling mode rather than idling on the fan uses 1100watts
so not cheap to run

I put a piece of thin ply in the open window with a hole cut out the size of
the vent pipe worked well

Changed it later for a tumble drier vent kit fitted through wall worth the
effort

I am using it in a 7 metre by 3 metre west facing room with patio doors

Most popular room in the house at the moment

Regards

Tony

"Huge" wrote in message
...
On 2006-07-20, Fred Finisterre wrote:
Hi,

Looking for a cheap but good (for the price) aircon unit. I'm expecting
to
have to have a big pipe traling out of the window, but if that can be
avoided so much the better.

Something available on the high street would be good.

Any good/bad experiences?

Monobloc units of the type your describe are essentially useless. A
search for air conditioning threads on uk.d-i-y on Google groups
will tell you why.

(I have one - it's OK for cooling a room with little or no solar
heat gain and no computers. My office, about 4m x 4m with 4 computers
and 2 sq m of SW facing window, it cannot cope.)

-- Sure they are nowhere near as good as proper air conditioning but they
are better than fans or the self contained evaporative coolers that many
people are using

Currently the outside shade temperature is 32 C but 24 C in the office with
the unit it running on medium setting

The air temp at the front of the unit is 13.4 C so I am getting some cooling
and a flow of cool air

Tony

The air temp at the front of the unit is 13.4 C so I am getting some
cooling
and a flow of cool air

The problem with these units is that whilst they shove cooled air out the
front, they also throw out lots of heat from the rear and chuck your
expensively cooled and then heated air out the pipe. They are an
environmental disaster and should be banned.

Christian.

"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
...
The air temp at the front of the unit is 13.4 C so I am getting some
cooling
and a flow of cool air

The problem with these units is that whilst they shove cooled air out the
front, they also throw out lots of heat from the rear and chuck your
expensively cooled and then heated air out the pipe. They are an
environmental disaster and should be banned.

This last may be true but it's not "these units". All aircon works like
this!


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

The problem with these units is that whilst they shove cooled air out the
front, they also throw out lots of heat from the rear and chuck your
expensively cooled and then heated air out the pipe. They are an
environmental disaster and should be banned.

This last may be true but it's not "these units". All aircon works like
this!

Not at all. Other types of air con units don't do this. Because:

(a) The back (condenser) is outdoors so can shove out as much parasitic heat
as it likes without affecting the building.
(b) The air actually heated by the condenser and released through the outlet
comes from outside. Expensive interior cold air is not used for this
purpose.

Basically, running a single pipe portable air conditioner causes as much
baking hot air to come in from outside as it pumps outside through its hose.
A split system actually provides no ventilation at all, so doesn't let hot
air into the house. A sophisticated building system may be designed provide
controlled heat recovery ventilation.

Some portable air con units can be modified by attaching an additional hose
with duct tape to the inlet grille, so that outside air is used on the
condensor. However, not all units can be so modified, as the supply for the
evaporator (inside air that comes cold out of the fan) must be interior air,
so this is only possible if the supply for each function comes from a
different grille.

Christian.

"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
...
The air temp at the front of the unit is 13.4 C so I am getting some
cooling
and a flow of cool air

The problem with these units is that whilst they shove cooled air out the
front, they also throw out lots of heat from the rear and chuck your
expensively cooled and then heated air out the pipe. They are an
environmental disaster and should be banned.

Christian.

Mine does not throw heat out of the rear only out of the pipe

And the alternative is?

I suppose I could get into my air conditioned car and drive to my air
conditioned office rather than working at home

I guess I could also switch off my fridges freezers and water cooler as well
as they appear to be chucking out loads of heat just to keep things cool

And who needs a computer heating up the office anyway

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper air
con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

But then again I am not sure of the environmental damage to the countries
producing them

Tony

"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
...
The problem with these units is that whilst they shove cooled air out
the
front, they also throw out lots of heat from the rear and chuck your
expensively cooled and then heated air out the pipe. They are an
environmental disaster and should be banned.

This last may be true but it's not "these units". All aircon works like
this!

Not at all. Other types of air con units don't do this. Because:

(a) The back (condenser) is outdoors so can shove out as much parasitic
heat
as it likes without affecting the building.
(b) The air actually heated by the condenser and released through the
outlet
comes from outside. Expensive interior cold air is not used for this
purpose.


Yeh but no but...

You can overcomplicate these arguments. All aircon units consume electric
power. This power is turned into heat and this heat is absorbed by the
outside air, whatever the type of unit. Power stations with their carbon
load are therefore being used to heat the atmosphere, again whatever the
type of unit and some would regard differentiating betweend them (in terms
of environmental impact) as nit-picking!

It is true that an insulated box with no ventilation, cooled by a split unit
will need less power but most air conditioned areas have ventilation as well
and ingress and egress of people, much reducing this efficiency.

Far better to design houses and clothing appropriately and get used to it.
Hands up - I do enjoy being air conditioned at work but at home one sits in
the shade, avoids exertion and drinks a lot of fluids.


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

You can overcomplicate these arguments. All aircon units consume electric
power. This power is turned into heat and this heat is absorbed by the
outside air, whatever the type of unit. Power stations with their carbon
load are therefore being used to heat the atmosphere, again whatever the
type of unit and some would regard differentiating betweend them (in terms
of environmental impact) as nit-picking!

Yes, but the efficient units are pumping out less heat and carbon dioxide.
Probably by several times over.

It is true that an insulated box with no ventilation, cooled by a split
unit
will need less power but most air conditioned areas have ventilation as
well
and ingress and egress of people, much reducing this efficiency.

The ventilation will be a tiny fraction of that provided by a portable
unit's extractor. Of course, for air con to work efficiently you have to
close the windows. However, hot weather is normally associated with calm
winds, so natural ventilation will actually be quite low. Of course,
insulation and reducing ventilation down to the minimum comfortable level
(or better still providing plenty of heat recovery ventilation) is the way
to go.

Far better to design houses and clothing appropriately and get used to it.

Indeed. However, I like to think of the entire picture. Whilst I am very
interested in environmental affairs, I'm not some Greenpeace nut. Having
everyone work at 50% efficiency because they are too hot is not
environmentally friendly, in my book, as it wastes resources.

Christian.

Fred Finisterre wrote:
Hi,

Looking for a cheap but good (for the price) aircon unit. I'm expecting to
have to have a big pipe traling out of the window, but if that can be
avoided so much the better.

Something available on the high street would be good.

Any good/bad experiences?

The local primary school has, just this week, had fitted split unit air
con. I spoke to the installation men to ask about a domestic version, as
these were of the top quality and therefore very expensive. He mentioned
Hitachi (sp) as being a suitable split unit at about £200-00. He also
said that there is not much to choose between mot of the £200-00 units.

It got me thing, as I currently have the portable unit behind right now.
I vent it through the patio door in the same way an earlier poster did;
through a board with a hole to fit the pipe.

HTH

Dave

"TMC" wrote in message
...

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper
air con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

A split portable unit will be about 20% better than one that uses a hose.

A split unit with the compressor outside is about 50% better but I have
never seen a portable one.

I may replace my portable split unit with a heat pump to provide heating and
cooling instead of the gas boiler.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
.uk...

"TMC" wrote in message
...

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper
air con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

A split portable unit will be about 20% better than one that uses a hose.

A split unit with the compressor outside is about 50% better but I have
never seen a portable one.

They can be seen quite often, slung out the windows of offices. The outside
part is a rectamgular unit with a couple of small fans in, and you can see a
couple of hoses connected to them.

I may replace my portable split unit with a heat pump to provide heating
and cooling instead of the gas boiler.

"Jason" wrote in message
...

"dennis@home" wrote in message
.uk...

"TMC" wrote in message
...

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper
air con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

A split portable unit will be about 20% better than one that uses a hose.

A split unit with the compressor outside is about 50% better but I have
never seen a portable one.

They can be seen quite often, slung out the windows of offices. The
outside part is a rectamgular unit with a couple of small fans in, and you
can see a couple of hoses connected to them.

Mine is like that.. but the compressor is inside not outside.
You can tell because the inside unit weighs about 30kg.

This means that the heat produced running the motor has to pass through the
pipes carrying the heat extracted from the room.
This makes it less efficent than having the compressor outside and cooled by
external air.

Like I said I have never seen a portable one with the compressor outside..
they are too heavy for people to hang from windows, etc.

In article ,
"dennis@home" writes:
Mine is like that.. but the compressor is inside not outside.
You can tell because the inside unit weighs about 30kg.

This means that the heat produced running the motor has to pass through the
pipes carrying the heat extracted from the room.
This makes it less efficent than having the compressor outside and cooled by
external air.

Actually, the compressors are all cooled primarily by the refrigerent
carrying heat away from them to the condensor, and not directly from
the casing even though it gets hot. (Same is true of fridges/freezers.)
Compressors normally go outside because of their noise/vibration -- it
makes no difference to the efficiency.

Like I said I have never seen a portable one with the compressor outside..
they are too heavy for people to hang from windows, etc.

These guys seem to be managing OK...
http://www.systems4business.co.nz/im...3/Picture2.jpg

--
Andrew Gabriel

dennis@home wrote:

"TMC" wrote in message
...

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper
air con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

A split portable unit will be about 20% better than one that uses a hose.

A split unit with the compressor outside is about 50% better but I have
never seen a portable one.

I may replace my portable split unit with a heat pump to provide heating and
cooling instead of the gas boiler.

Are there any domestic air-con units that do something constructive with
all this waste heat ?

Presumably all this heat could be used for something useful like hot
water or a swimming pool instead of going to waste ?

"Roly" wrote in message
...

Presumably all this heat could be used for something useful like hot
water or a swimming pool instead of going to waste ?

Its pretty low grade.
but you could use it to preheat the water in a ho****er system, or a pool.
If you want to be green you can put it into a ground storage system and
extract it later when the weathers gone cold.
All of which cost money.

Just out of curiosity how much more environmentally friendly are proper
air con systems?
It may be better if I move up to one of those

A split portable unit will be about 20% better than one that uses a
hose.

A split unit with the compressor outside is about 50% better but I have
never seen a portable one.

They can be seen quite often, slung out the windows of offices. The
outside part is a rectamgular unit with a couple of small fans in, and
you can see a couple of hoses connected to them.

Mine is like that.. but the compressor is inside not outside.
You can tell because the inside unit weighs about 30kg.

This means that the heat produced running the motor has to pass through
the pipes carrying the heat extracted from the room.
This makes it less efficent than having the compressor outside and cooled
by external air.

I wouldn't have thought it makes a difference where the compressor is
(inside or outside). So long as the heat is carried outside, through
insulated pipes, where a fan can waft it all away, then that's what counts.

-- JJ

"dennis@home" wrote in message
o.uk...

"Roly" wrote in message
...

Presumably all this heat could be used for something useful like hot
water or a swimming pool instead of going to waste ?

Its pretty low grade.
but you could use it to preheat the water in a ho****er system, or a pool.
If you want to be green you can put it into a ground storage system and
extract it later when the weathers gone cold.
All of which cost money.

Whatever you do will cost money. The trick is to know what you are going to
pay, and make sure you can afford it. Can any of us say with any certainty,
what a litre of petrol, or a kilowatt-hour of electricty is going to cost in
ten years time?

-- JJ