Will Work for Air-Conditioning | Hacker News Reader

Will Work for Air-Conditioning

nytimes.com

24 pointslxm24 comments

If anyone is considering buying a "portable" air conditioner - the kind that rolls around on wheels - know that they are pretty awful. If you must buy one, at least buy a "dual hose" version. Single hose versions suck air out of your house, causing fresh, but hot, air to be sucked in through all the vents, gaps, and cracks in your house.

Window units or "split" systems are far more efficient and work much better, at the downside of cost and installation fees.

Technology Connections has a very good video (with perhaps excessive detail, but it is very interesting) about them, here: https://youtu.be/_-mBeYC2KGc

TechIngredients did an interesting design for a swamp cooler using liquid desiccants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w4rg3UcsgI

Haven't yet built one myself, but it looks like a sensible design for climates that aren't overly humid.

I currently live in a condo complex that bans window air conditioners and ductless air conditioners. It's portable or nothing.

One hack I've seen is to have a box that sits inside your room with one end butted up against the window screen, and a regular air conditioner that is mounted on the other side of the box. The screen-end of the box would have 4 fans, two blowing in and two blowing out that would vent the heat exchanger side of the AC with outside air. Yet there would still be no AC box visible from outside the building.

I'd love to get a mini split, but it seems like all the contractors around here are booked out a minimum of 3 months.

try a DIY Mr. Cool.

They are easy to install for anyone that has a little xp in home diy projects. I'm on year 2 and I love mine in the garage.

I've heard of these - I'm surprised it's taken so much time for someone to just think of a pre-charged lineset and compressor with valves you can open.

Yeah. I was looking at it initially and thought it might not be that great so I got a few quotes for Japanese units and they all wanted like 5-6k so I just did it myself with a 1.5t under $2k for everything including electrical. I figured if it ever went bad I could just get another or try to fix it first.

Portable ACs are the right tool for some people. Another thing to think about is noise - they're actually louder for you the consumer than window units, but in some cases that's a good thing, because sometimes your neighbors start to complain about the noise to your landlord if you're renting.

One more plus is that if you're in a climate that only gets that hot a handful of weeks a year, then for the sake of your window unit you should really take it out to prevent rust and other wear, but that's a huge hassle. You can just wheel the portable AC into the closet.

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tl;dr they do suck at cooling in comparison to window units, but they're probably the right thing to get if you're renting in a cool climate.

While I 'get' this, as not everyone's living conditions are favourable, personally my experience with WFH has been awesome from the air conditioning perspective.

I've had skin rashes every year in winter since moving here, except mysteriously (or not ...) this winter. I blame the conditioned air in the office. Summer isn't better either. Outside I can't take off enough clothes to stay non-sweaty and then I come into a freezer in the office. Sweaty and with not enough clothes on me. I literally wear _more_ to the office in summer than I do in winter, because the ice cold air is blowing around (and for some time I was so unlucky that I had a seat right under a vent).

I had an older (read: gave less shits) former coworker go on a crusade about the dry air in the office in the winter. And it was bad — enough that I had no doubt it caused bloody noses and colds. I don’t think he ever got it fixed, but a few years later we’re all working from home and can humidify or dehumidify or space heat or wear shorts at will, so I suppose wherever he is, he’s happy… I know I am.

I really wish there was some sort of perfected version of this:

https://rollibot.com/product/mini-split-ac-room-air-conditio...

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I can emphasize with the article - air conditioning is definitely a luxury, one you don't fully appreciate until you experience 80+ degrees Fahrenheit with 80%+ humidity.

Spend any significant time in the wilderness, especially somewhere without perfect year-round weather, and you /really/ start to appreciate the comforts of civilisation.

A car with air conditioning after just three days in the field is just... glorious.

How much of our civilization is focused on essentials like AC though? And how much is wasted on nonsense like Funko Pops and air fryers?

How quiet is that? My problem with air conditioners is noise. I end up wearing earplugs.

Are they not selling it anymore?

From Johnson's How We Got to Now:

> Places that had been intolerably hot and humid — including some of the cities where Frederic Tudor had sweated out the summer as a young man — were suddenly tolerable to a much larger slice of the general public. By 1964, the historic flow of people from South to North that had characterized the post-Civil War era had been reversed. The Sun Belt expanded with new immigrants from colder states, who could put up with the tropical humidity or blazing desert climates thanks to domestic air conditioning. Tuscon rocketed from 45,000 people to 210,000 in just ten years; Houston expanded from 600,000 to 940,000 in the same decade. In the 1920s, when Willis Carrier was first demonstrating air-conditioning to Adolph Zukor at the Rivoli Theatre, Florida’s population stood at less than one million. Half a century later, the state was well on the way to becoming one of the four most populous in the country, with ten million people escaping the humid summer months in air-conditioned homes. Carrier’s invention circulated more than just molecules of oxygen and water. It ended up circulating people too.

* Via: https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2020/06/the-air-conditionin...

Air conditioning was actually originally created for humidity control for printing presses and their ink. Temperature control for humans came later.

If you live in a somewhat humid area, it's worth considering getting a whole house dehumidifier in addition to an air conditioner:

* https://blog.totalhomesupply.com/whole-house-dehumidifier-pr...

The air temperature may be 24C/75F, and thus the AC is not active, but the RH may be >70% and you'll still be uncomfortable / "hot". If you don't have separate dehum the only way to deal with it is to drop the air setting further—in which case you start 'freezing'.

Last summer I got a temp gig after a layoff. I was overall pretty lucky. I was working with old on-site tape archives, so I had a justifiable need to be in the air conditioned server rooms. I live in Los Angeles, so I would often just do most of the work there, even the parts I could do from home. Even with that easy free A/C, I had my monthly power bill double during the summer months, from using A/C when I did WFH. I also had bought it that year, not previously even needing one, as I am was of those sysadmins that lived in the office.

It did shift my perspective a bit, I'm not surprised to see this article written

Really do wonder why swamp coolers aren't more popular in desert environments like Los Angeles.

I don't think Los Angeles is arid enough for swamp coolers to be effective enough to offset the water usage. You need something that works for the days that are hot and humid, cause those are the worst.

That said, if you go to the outskirts to the east, like Riverside, they're a lot more popular.

LA already has to import water.

While travelling in some Asian countries, I discovered that in some areas students flood the classic Starbucks so they can study in controlled temperature environment (no for socializing).

As a European, I only understood late in my life how crucial was AC to boost the economical development of some countries like Singapore (among other things of course).

Where would many European countries be without heating?

I realize it's lucky but I love WFH because I can just work from our basement in the summer, very little AC/electricity required (we set our thermostat to 78 during the day). It's a pretty solid 65 degrees down here. We also have large egress windows so I still get lots of natural light by my desk.

https://archive.is/lK0c3

Aside from this article referencing the infamous Office AC Is Sexist article. Have these sweaty workers never heard of a fan?

Your body has a cooling mechanism, and the fact the sweat is pooling on your face arms and legs is due to you not passing enough air over them. Point a fan directly at yourself, wear loose clothing, and you’ll find yourself cooler and drier than you ever thought you could be. ( unless you are one of those poor souls who live in areas with high humidity as well as heat, not much you can do there)

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