This heat is making my wife kill me - help me fix the AC please! FAQ

Here I mean split AC's with one compressor and two (or even 3 iirc) in-room units, mounted high on the wall with remote controls that do several things. Set temp at least, sleep switch maybe, sweeping maybe, fan speed probably. Splits like this are really common in Europe.

Agreed on replace main unit but he may want to try replacing capacitor first.

I replaced a very old HVAC when they could no longer jury-rig repair parts. No one knows how old it was but estimates lead to 1980-85. I replaced it in 2019. Good long run there!

Grin, fate can be danged hard to deal with. Anyway, portables are great for backups at need. Move it where needed. Most are on wheels. As I sit at my computer, at my back is the sunroom. I like the door open so a portable is in the patio door to the backyard, blowing colder air at me 13 ft away, Outside is only 90F (good for here at this season).

On lawnmowers that stopped here once we learned how to safe it by running it completely dry before storing for winter.

Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Amazon. They vent through a flexible 4 inch hose at the back through a window fitting that comes with them.

This a deluxe unit but other smaller units run 299$-399$.

BIG NOTE: It's very, very, worth spending the extra $50 or so to get a _dual_ hose unit.

Both types blow the heated (by compressor..) air out the window, BUT the single hose units bring the replacement, "make up" air, from the room they're in. Which means, in turn, air gets sucked into your room using the hot and humid air from the hallway, etc.

In other words, you're effectively blowing a shitload of hot, humid, air into your room. So yes, while the section right next to the in-room outlet is comfortable, you're wasting a horrendous amount of energy and efficiency. And money..

The dual hose units bring the outside/make up air directly from the window to the compressor..

All true.

I'm still thinking about this topic, but this is what I have so far...

But with a double hose, you have to cool off outside air that is fully hot and humid. With a single hose, your intake air has been partially cooled and dehumiditified because it's been mixes in the room with output air from the AC. It seems to me to be 6 of one, a half-dozen of the other.

With a sinngle hose the intake air from the room is blown outside and yes, it's replaced by leaked air, which mixes with the room air and gets partially cooled. IOW, cooling is a two stage process for single hose, but it's the same hot intake air in either case.

I don't think he would be wasting *any* energy or money. Let alone "horrendous".

No disagreement.

"Single Hose... . Expelling this air creates something called negative air pressure, and the air that is removed from the room is replaced by warm air that seeps in through any cracks or openings around windows and doors. Consequently, the unit has to work harder to keep the room cool"

Of course it's true that warm air comes in through cracks etc, but why does that make it work harder than a double hose What other replacement air can there be? If you have a double hose, it takes in air from the outside that is as hot as or hotter than the air coming in from cracks around your doors

Single-hose portable air conditioner benefits Great for small spaces like bedrooms, home offices, or play areas Less expensive More easily portable Quieter operation

The last 3 seems important advantages to me. If the first one implies double hose can do larger spaces, is it not because they have bigger compressors and fans, so that's what makes them more expensive, less portable, and more noisy?

It goes on: Instead of taking in air from the room, a dual-hose portable air conditioner uses one hose to draw in air from the outside. It then undertakes a similar cooling process to a single-hose unit, after which it removes heated air and moisture through the other exhaust hose. This intake method cools the unit’s compressor and motor down,

---Why are contrasting this with single hose? Why would air from the outside cool down the compressor and motor more than air from the inside? In fact air from inside, especially air near the AC, has already been mixed with air that the AC cooled, so it's cooler than fully-hot air from the outside and it's going to do a better job of cooling the inside parts of the AC. ---

allowing the air conditioner to work longer and harder.

---If this matters, I would think the opposite would be true. Maybe the double hose ACs have bigger compressors so that's why they can work harder. Probably. ---

It goes on: dual-hose portable ACs are extremely effective, they are not without their drawbacks. They are typically more expensive than single-hose models, and because they operate with two internal fans, they tend to make more noise. Because of their design, they can also be more cumbersome to move from room to room. However, for many people, these issues are offset by the powerful cooling the dual-hose units provide. ---- The wattage rating would show, I bet, that it's because they are bigger! If they are 11 to 14 amps, what else is supposed to run on the same circuit at the same time? Even single hose use a lot of current, but I can't look at mine right now.

Dual-hose portable air conditioner benefits Great for larger spaces like living rooms, dens, and kitchens More efficient Cool faster

--- NOT more efficient, I'll bet, any more than a 400 cubic inch engine is more efficient than a 300 cubic inch. It's just bigger, heavier, uses more electricity so it cools faster and can do bigger spaces.

If you have any feedback or questions you’d like us to address, please get in touch with us a snipped-for-privacy@jmatek.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Somone one should send a reorganized, easier to read copy of this post to this address and see what they have to say. Although Honeywell should know what it's talking about, this one writer may be more interested in upselling. Who knows if he understands the issues, or is just repeating prior advertising.

A dual-hose portable air conditioner uses two exhaust hoses. One pulls in outdoor air, and the other vents hot air outside. Dual-hose units can cool a room quickly and efficiently, and they’re a great option for larger spaces and rooms with tall ceilings.

Advantages:

Faster, more efficient cooling than single-hose units

---I think here too he's conflating speed with efficiency, so he's saying faster twice. I don't doubt that they are bigger and thus faster, but is anyone really comparing watt-hours with BTU's removed? I doubt it. ---

Filters last longer because the unit brings in fresh air from outdoors

---Why would that make the filter last longer? It's called "fresh" air but it has pollen and maybe other stuff, so is it cleaner than indoor air? ---

Use less energy to cool a larger room.

--- Here he does claim that it uses less energy but maybe he's working backwards from when he concluded it was more efficient. ---

Disadvantages:

May be less efficient if outdoor air is hot or humid (With some models, you may even need to remove the air intake hose on especially humid days.)

--- Hmmm. If outside intake air is so good, why would you ever have to disconnect it? Of course the outside air is hot and humid. If it were not for that, we could just use fans or nothing at all. ---

Higher upfront cost More difficult to set up and move from room to room

If on the edge deciding, replacing an AC next year will be more costly. New refrigerants must be used and I'm told cost is 25% more

Bringing in fresh, humid air will just make your A/C work harder to remove the water, and have to cool the air further to cool as much. Exhausting already cool dry air and replacing it with hot humid air just doesn't make sense. It will without any doubt cost you more electricity. Condensing humidity just wastes energy without cooling the air a single bit. So why bring more humidity in?

And all that warm humid air gets sucked into other parts of the house, heating and humidifying those areas.

A dual hose unit only flows air across the condenser, the outdoor air does not mix with the indoor room air.

Two hose units are much more efficient than single hose units.

Maybe I should have nsipped much of what's above, but I didn't.

I find this all complicated but this much I can say. With a one hose portable ac you're not exhausting cool air. It's hot, hotter than the outside air, because the heat that is removed from the air which is blown into the room is transferred to the exhaust air. I've put my hand on the hose and I can say for sure. In fact I wanted some way to insulate the output hose, which is just one layer of vinyl, so it wouldn't radiate heat on the way out, but I didn't come up with one.

The humidity has condensed and dribbles out the drain, to the hose. I guess if you have no place to drain it, it will sit in a tray inthe bottom of the AC and eventually evaporate. Is my plan to run the drain out through the house's wall a good one, assuming there is on overhang like my house has? The hole would have to be lower than the drain in the AC, and should probably slope down a little. The clear vinyl hose can just stick out of the wall a couple inches.

If the house has no AC, the other rooms have gotten humid already. On days where the humidity is lower than yesterday, sucking in air would lower the humidity in those rooms.

As I said, it's complicated and I have to think about all this some more.

Dang. I don't see how I get mine replaced by then.

Do you know if the units with the new refrigerant more or less efficient than with the current stuff?

I could get a split installed in the bedroom/office by then, but during this hot summer is the most expensive time to hire AC installers. So then there is fall, but if it will be this hot in the future, maybe I should do my bedroom too. The one hottest night it was not comfortable there, even with the fans, until 3AM. OTOH last night was fine and today although it got to 95^ here, the humidity reported is only 44% and it's not bad. If it's no worse than this next year and next, doing only the office should be fine.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 97 with 57% humidity, but I have to go to a friend's clarinet recital so I won't be home anyhow in the hottest part of the day. i wonder how bad it would be if I were here.

Maybe not. If the two pipe system works like a typical window unit, the air brought in just passes the condenser coil to carry out the heat. Room air is recirculated over the evaporator coil. No room air is lost or gained, just cooled.

Won't make any difference. The outside air is not dependent on a clarinet recital or you being home.

And if you used the outside air to make the transfer, it would be even hotter.

For efficiency, the water should be sprayed onto the hot heat exchanger for the outlet hot air, to cool it and thereby increase efficiency.

Is my plan to run the drain

You are digging.

If you are not drawing in heat elsewhere in the house, those rooms will be cooler because the "cool" in one room leaks into others.

And better.

Exactly. Unlike the one hose portable A/C.

LOL Good point.

The links in my last post are no good. I had deleted those dropbox files. Here are some stats for my home town that are simply understood. These figures hardly show any signs of Global Warming.

Some June temps for my town in Indiana.

June 1 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 62.1 °F Mean Temperature 67.4 °F Maximum Temperature 76.3 °F

June 2 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 57 °F Mean Temperature 61 °F Maximum Temperature 68 °F

June 3 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 61 °F Mean Temperature 69 °F Maximum Temperature 86 °F

June 4 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 71 °F Mean Temperature 78 °F Maximum Temperature 85 °F

June 5 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 71 °F Mean Temperature 78 °F Maximum Temperature 85 °F

June 6 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 65 °F Mean Temperature 79 °F Maximum Temperature 71 °F

June 7 2024 Temperature Minimum Temperature 63 °F Mean Temperature 66 °F Maximum Temperature 69 °F

Here's the page for my town's temps for this week. Notice the nights in the 60's? I guess Global Warming happens only in the daytime.

Here is a weather history site at which if you type in a location and a date it will show you a graph of the weather temperature for a day, or the week or month starting at that date.

Check for the temperature in your town for a week or month back in June of 2010 for instance. Fourteen years of Global Warming should show should have today's temps a lot hotter. Use a number of years and see there is no big difference in the average temps.

In my area, in the 1970s we had on average 60 days that were 90 degrees or above.

In the 2000s, that is 120 days a year.

Yes, there is a difference over time.