The units are from 7000 btu to 12000 btu, and have a hose that you hook up to your window (to blow out the hot air). I am looking to cool down 40 m2 area (top floor in a maisonette, so ceiling is quite high). I am thinking it makes sense to buy now, instead of waiting until next summer and paying full price.
Does anyone have experiences with these units? Do they work?
Personally, I'd go for a big ceiling fan which can make an environment, especially for sleeping, much more pleasant.
Assuming you aren't renting, fitting them isn't so hard nowadays as they come pre-gassed
* you need to look at the space, not just the area. So 40 sqm, but how high is the ceiling? 2.6m vs 4m -> big difference.
* a single 3.5kW unit may not be able to fully cool down that room, so you might be looking at installing two of them
* these mobile units are usually noisy, so you may not want to sleep next to them. This is one aspect in which the split type is clearly superior.
* you might want to go for the type which has two ducts, not one. They are sightly better (bit more efficient), so if you can choose such a unit, do it
As always, there is some correlation between price and quality, if you go for the cheapest solution you get what you deserve. Anyways, even though split solutions are the best, mobile ACs can also make a huge difference - so go for it, I don't think they will get any cheaper next year...
Split units or twin-pipe units avoid this problem but for a *good* 'portable' split unit you're looking at 1600 or more. Fixed split units can be quite cheap but I believe you need to get approval from your local authority to fit them and the property owner if applicable.
The portable units we bought are some of the best investments we ever made.
We only use them for a month or so each year - usually when it gets above 30degrees consistently for a week or so - but when needed they are the difference between sleeping and not / misery and joy; etc.
Now I could not survive in Switzerland without them.
I bought this one last year:
https://www.galaxus.ch/de/s2/product…upplier=406802
It is a 12,000 btu unit, which should allegedly be sufficient for my living area.
As Landers has said, it’s really only beneficial if you’re sitting directly in front of it, so if I feel that I need it, I’m trapped on the couch or at my dining table. It does not have the ability to keep a room cool. Needing the window open for the hose obviously negates a lot of the benefit too, even though I use one of those window-gap-curtains specifically for this purpose.
Additionally, I find it extremely loud.
There was an excellent thread on here a while ago about how these work and the limited benefit of them, I’m hoping one of the other members will remember it and be able to link it for you. I wish I had read that thread before I purchased mine, I think I would’ve made a different choice.
Our bedroom is 40sqm in the roof of our house. It gets very warm. The mobile AC unit we bought works well, venting into the chimney. It's not as fast or efficient as a split unit, but for the last few weeks it has cooled the room sufficiently we've been able to sleep comfortably. It's noisy so we switch it off before we go to sleep. We only switch it on in the evenings, to be ready when we turn in.
One of my friends has one that vents into the cat flap. His cat is less than amused.
I drilled a 25cm hole in the wall for the warm air outlet hose.
Our neighbors above us live on the 1st floor and have an AC unit with a hose running out their window, with plastic around the hose. I guess I'm not sure how those things work exactly, but I was curious why they chose to put it in a window that has the hot afternoon sun beating down on it all day rather than in the east-facing window on the other side of that same room.
I asked her if it helps cool their place down and she said that it's better than nothing. I guess they got it to help keep their Labrador Retriever cool.
Maybe if you put a fan in front of those things it would help blow the cool air around?
Someone mentioned ceiling fans... I've read before that those don't actually work well to cool a room because warm air rises and so all a ceiling fan really does is blow the warmest air in the room around, to mix with the cooler air below. But I don't have a ceiling fan, so I can't confirm via experience that they don't help cool a room.
And I wish them, and you, all the best. My post was intended to share my and my family's experience for the benefit of the original poster.
I guess that in the context of air conditioners it is an abbreviation for British Thermal Units per hour, that is a measure of power.
This particular measure is probably chosen so the manufacturers can print a large number with lots of zeros at the end on the product box.
It reminds me of my school days when there were log tables in circulation (originating before the adoption of SI units) with tables of useful measures like the calorific value of broken Welsh coal.
My skin temp is 32. So the fan will cool me down because it causes the layer of air around me to be continually replaced - the effect is immediately apparent.
It is possible to survive without air-con.
Calculate your cubic meteres (m3) not square meters (m2), then use 1 of the many online calulators to work out the BTU or CFM output required some brands do make it easy and say good for X m3.
They need to vent out though and thats the tricky bit, or not dependant upon whether you are an owner or tenant. If you are an owner then simple, get a hole drilled through the wall to the outside, and fit a vent plate with beasty mesh to stop creepy crawlies getting i, the same sort of things as for a tumble dryer or cooker hood. Fit a pipe through the wall to the inside, and seal it with laine de roche or expanding foam (hateful stuff), and fit the mounting plate that comes with the unit (or should) on the inside, the diameter of the hole should be equal to the diameter of the hose, but it should be explained in the fitting instructions. Then when the machine is in use it just clips on, make sure you angle the vents on the machine upwards, NOT straight ahead, that will generate a circulation of air as the denser cold air fals (and you aren't sitting in a hurricane), if you just point them straight they simply arent as effective. if you are a tenant, then is a less effective curtain blind to cover the pipe outlet and the window open is your only real soloution.
I'm in SW France where we have been 35-43 for the last 8 weeks or so, and my bedroom is a nice cool 22, and the salon 24.
Moving air increases evaporation of sweat from the skin. Evaporation cools the body.
Evaporation is what has cooled humans for around 200,000 years before air-con.
Don't they teach this basic stuff in schools any more?
Actually they do - I had a discussion with my son about sublimation tonight.
But saying you don't think you would have 'survived' is stretching the point just a bit, don't you think?