It's that time of year again. Just a few days into the heat and our house is uninhabitable. It faces south, bakes in the sun all day long and doesn't cool down overnight. The only cool part of the house is the cupboard under the stairs and I'm too long to sleep in it.
Inevitably, my thoughts (and dreams) have turned to air conditioners. Just something to take the edge off when it's 28 degrees on the top floor at 3am. It's one of those items I know nothing about so I can't tell them apart. They seem to be pretty basic so what's the difference? Do I need to spend £200 or £500? Will it make my electricity meter spin like a hamsters wheel?
What have you got and how do you use it? Is it any good?
We've had ours probably about 20 years now - ex. B&Q - condenser type that blows the hot air out of a pipe. Works well enough to cool upstairs, but they are quite noisy.
The only cool part of the house is the cupboard under the stairs and I’m too long to sleep in it.
You are NOT harry Potter and i claim my £5...
I was looking into these last night too.. in a veluxed south facing room with an outside wall that heats up all day..
Toasty... Trouble is i've no where outside the house to vent the hose air..
DrP
Step 1 - Windows open overnight to let hot air out and cool air in.
Step 2 - As the sun comes up, shut the windows and curtains - I have to peg a blanket over the landing window.
Did that today for the first time this year and gobsmacked at how much difference it makes - been almost cool this morning, and stunned at how hot it was when I went outside for lunch.
We don't have a loft hatch, the loft is the master bedroom. I put reflective chrome tint on the Velux windows in the roof which stops the whole unit from blasting out heat like a radiator. We've got white venetian blinds everywhere else which stay closed all day.
We open the windows at night and close them in the morning. I feel like we've already done everything that we can reasonably achieve and it's made a big difference but it's not enough.
We just can't shed the heat during the night. The whole house is boiling all day long and it retains the temperature all night. The air in the bedrooms feels like soup. It's really awful.
I'm lying awake all night thinking that it's only June and we could have another 3 months of this. We're currently nowhere near last years temperatures. I slept on a camping mat in the kitchen for about a week last year (with the fridge door closed).
IndyBest have a recent review of the Best portable air conditioners may have some helpful recommendations
I had a unit installed that's fixed to the (west facing) main bedroom wall. It was - remarkably; cheaper to install than two new wider opening windows.
Plus I'm married to a Canadian. Air con and the ability to dispense an unlimited supply of ice are basic human rights as far as she's concerned.
I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do.
Also in a loft bedroom and I just have a generic one from Screwfix which is at least ten years old now but still going strong. I only use it once the outside temperature has fallen below 21C, so it pumps hot air out of the house but also sucks in cooler air via the other side of the window.
And before anyone goes down the "Darwin Award" thing, it's run off batteries which charge from solar panels. Which in turn go some way towards stopping the sun baking the roof.
IndyBest have a recent review of the Best portable air conditioners may have some helpful recommendations
Thanks for that it's actually a useful read.
I had A/C installed over the winter, it's a bit of an indulgence given how infrequently we have heatwaves currently in the UK but I've already used it a few times and it's great - def recommend it to anyone thinking about it vs making do with portable A/C or other methods.
House was built in the 1850s and is rather thick stone...I just moved to the side of the house opposite the sun and it is very cool...until about 7pm then the stonework radiates heat throughout the house!
Fans are better than air-con.
I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do
Mmm indeed. That's exactly what I was saying:
Just open the fridge door
I find that a simple fan can do a reasonable job in the heat. Obviously, it’s not at all the same. But the movement of the air still seems make sleeping much more comfortable. Even when I lived in a very hot climate, I preferred ceiling fans to ACs in general.
FunkyDunc
Free Member
I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do.
Again
Even when I lived in a very hot climate, I preferred ceiling fans to ACs in general.
IME the difference is that houses in 'very hot climates' are built to suit the needs of the climate rather than being built for the UK's middling 10-18(ish) degree norm. As a result those houses don't turn into mini-furnaces when it's a bit warm outside, so the fans are a good solution. I've tried fans, closed windows and curtains etc but at times our house is still less comfortable to sleep in than some (a/c free) places I've stayed in the tropics.
paddling pool inflated in the garden
Same here but I work from home and my employer is starting to question the number of water damaged laptops.
Have you tried:
Through the day close south facing windows, hang a bedsheet over the glass outside the house and close the curtains inside.
Create shade in any way you can if you have a patio/had ground to the south of the house - tarp, umbrella etc can reduce the heating and heat reflection of hard surfaces.
It can really help with peak heat in a house.
(Long term, and with a rapidly changing climate in mind, I think many of us are going to have to invest in a LOT of shading for the south of houses, reflective membranes on roofs, lots of green infrastructure (i.e. plants, shrubs, trees), window shutters/external blinds etc)
We just keep the window open, and have a fan on each side of the bed. Don't buy a cheap one (they're noisy and rattle). Look for one with a DC motor as they are often a lot quieter and balanced. Cost perhaps a hundred quid, rather than a many hundred quid. All for just a few days a year.
Have you tried:
- insulation
Win win cooler in the summer warmer in the winter
Plant misting spray and a small fan. We have a portable aircon unit that is too noisy and too expensive. There is a reason why they are mounted to the outside of buildings!
I just wash n go.
I did hill reps, got extremely hot and sweaty. Then once home and showered, the heat was comparatively cool.
Go ride.
Fans are better than air-con.
Clearly they are not. Brainless comment.
I'm also looking for an AC Unit as sleeping during hot nights has become an issue over the past few years and doesn't seem to be a one off hot summer now. I always look for one, then get put off by the prices and the fact that many need to run a hose out of a window like a dryer does. I hate those hoses, they're crap and don't last long at all
I’ve a fair amount of experience in hot countries. I’ve lived and worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Australia (a hot part).
AC can be ok, but has real weaknesses. Fans are versatile, cheap, effective, and the don’t use huge amounts of power.
if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat, and when you have to do without it (go outside, or go somewhere that doesn’t have it) your body cannot cope. Fans let your body remember that it’s hot.
position them well and they work as well as AC
i was going to be polite, but what the hell: Your comment is brainless and ignorant.
2 nights in on evaporative coolers, certainly working well enough when they blow over the bed, granted, its likely to get hotter soon..Can't justify the electrical and environmental cost of AC at home
Again in the same boat, even if we got a proper AC unit, the (noisy) outside unit would be meter from our neighbours windows, which is far from fair.
Anyone got an opinion on those evaporator fans? We already have normal fans but they only work so well, our dogs are really struggling with this heat
Edit: Hmm, what unit did you buy @Alan1977 ?
Evaporative stuff works best when the air is dry (I worked for an Australian company that sold them, I think that's a better climate for them than here). We tend to have more humid heat so there is less evaporation and therefore less cooling. Still better than a regular fan though, and they use less energy than a proper AC unit.
I wonder if an evaporative cooler and a dehumidifier would work together?
if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat
Yeah but, a typical summer week in the UK...
Monday - 30 degrees
Tues - 21 degrees
Wed - 32 degrees
Thurs - 18 degrees
Fri - 16 degrees
Sat - 36 degrees and pissing down!
Sun - 22 degrees
...we'll never acclimatise to the 30+ degrees we get a few days a year! Best we can do is sit, moan about it and sweat! 🙂
i bought the princess coolers that B&Q are selling, bit more expensive but im a big sucker for automation.. making sure stuff turns off when i go out etc etc
3.5l tank i think, and on night one, 10pm-6am it looks like it used half of it
this morning when i got up however, i noticed my room was still significantly warmer than the landing, so today, curtains and windows closed, as soon as the sun is going down ill chuck the window open and see if the combination of the cooler plus fresh cooler air (its definitely cooler than inside) works well
We bought a stand alone A/C unit last year - was just amazing, sleeping in a room at 20C was so much easier than one at nearly 40C!
Given it's only ever really hot here for a week or two, you're never going to properly acclimatise to it eg it's supposed to be cooling off at the WE...
Used to live in a Dormer flat in Southern Germany. Summer heatwaves could see 38 degrees with bedroom temp not dipping below 32 for a week. My solution was to take the week off as unpaid holiday and head to the hills (Alps)!
I’ve a fair amount of experience in hot countries. I’ve lived and worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Australia (a hot part).
AC can be ok, but has real weaknesses. Fans are versatile, cheap, effective, and the don’t use huge amounts of power.if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat, and when you have to do without it (go outside, or go somewhere that doesn’t have it) your body cannot cope. Fans let your body remember that it’s hot.
position them well and they work as well as AC
i was going to be polite, but what the hell: Your comment is brainless and ignorant.
Fans just circulate warm air and don't cool. So how you claim they are better than AC is just pure arrogant drivel. Your examples of other hot countries on the other side of the world with totally different climates are irrelevant and beyond stupid. Why do all those countries use AC then? All those offices, houses and shops have got it all wrong, they should tap into your expertise!
Most people aren't interested or dumb enough to try and acclimatise to a uk heatwave which only last days or a couple of weeks at the most. Once or twice a year at the most. They just want their house or bedroom cool enough to sleep comfortably on those few and far between occasions. Its not hard to grasp.
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Oh do calm down.
I don’t know why I’m still surprised by this - someone who is unnecessarily rude in an initial post gets a rude reply, then gets even ruder in their next comment. However it’s a nice day, and I’ve got covid at the moment so don’t have the energy to argue.
Lots of places use aircon, yes, for various reasons. That doesn’t mean it isn’t noisy, wasteful, expensive and environmentally awful.
In my experience fans can be as effective if used properly, and they have many benefits ie they are cheap, quiet, portable, and don’t use too many resources. I’m still not sure why this opinion is making you so angry, so please, feel free to ignore it along with any others you dislike.
Apologies to anyone else who for any reason thought I was being arrogant. My advice - which like all advice can be disregarded, would be to try fans first as they are a much cheaper and quicker possible solution. In Thailand they were often kept under a desk and aimed at feet (this was partly to keep mosquitoes away, which I don’t imagine is a problem for most of you), which kept the whole body cool. When it’s hot I do the same - aim the fan at my feet, which keeps me cool throughout the night.
Air-con to keep cool seems to me to be as daft as building more roads to relieve traffic. It’s an environmental nightmare. If that isn’t something that bothers you, and you don’t mind the expense, then go for it. I’m sure I remember loads of threads a few months back asking how we could keep our power bills down, and an ongoing thread about saving money by not putting the heating on - these things never last long, eh?
We use them at work to cool rack equipment, they're noisy and draw a lot of power (~1.7kW).
You've got to do some degree of plumbing even with a 'portable' one as the hot wet air needs to go somewhere so you need to add something like a tubledryer vent into the room you want to use it in.
You've got to keep the doors/windows closed, otherwise it's like trying to heat a room with the doors open in winter.
Why do all those countries use AC then?
A big stretch when 46% of the world lives in measurable poverty and a big chunk of that is warmer than the UK.
Fans just circulate warm air and don’t cool.
They do if you're alive with a body temperature above ambient, and even better if you're perspiring. Most of the world get's by with a fan.
For those looking at portable aircon - most also double up as dehumidifiers and can be used to speed up drying of washing indoors in winter without having to resort to tumble driers and also avoiding issues with excess indoor humidity from wet clothes.
most also double up as dehumidifiers
If that's part of your use case it's worth checking the manual for each PAC unit you consider. Some will still need a window vent in dehumidifier mode so that's not great in winter, and most others will need a drain tube connecting so the water can be collected but the majority have the drain at the bottom of the unit and rely on gravity so you'd need to lift the (normally heavy) PAC box above whatever you're draining it into.
Step 1 – Windows open overnight to let hot air out and cool air in.
Step 2 – As the sun comes up, shut the windows and curtains – I have to peg a blanket over the landing window.
Normally I do this but my hay fever is quite bad at the min.
What have done though is put some uv mirror film off ebay on the back windows (they face south west and in the sun all day) it made a big difference. There still is a lot of heat stored in the bricks though.
You’ve got to do some degree of plumbing even with a ‘portable’ one as the hot wet air needs to go somewhere so you need to add something like a tubledryer vent into the room you want to use it in.
Ours came with a variable width thing for windows, so easy to vent through a partially open window with no large gaps (as it expands to fill the width of the window). Works very well.
I've been keeping my loft door open for a couple of years now, made much easier now the wasps nest has gone.
