Cooling a house

[N. Thornton]

Whats the power consumption of this beastie?

Regards, NT

[T i m]

We got ours from Homebase a few years ago and is one of the ones with a real external heat exchanger. I 'fitted' it in the (unused) middle bedroom (of our 3 bed 1897 (end of) terraced house) with the heat exchanger on the colder North facing wall.

It also can turn that one room into a fridge pretty quickly or make the whole top floor very cold over a couple of hours (we did an experiment with the upstairs doors left open and polythene across the landing etc). So 'nice' infact you don't want to go back into the rest of the house!

My next 'experiment' would be to knock a couple of holes through between our bedroom and the middle bedroom (one high, one low and a brick sized) with adjustable vents over the top with the thought that the cold air will flow into our room while the hot air will go back into the middle room to be cooled (this could be fan assisted if needed). If it worked out then we might also extend it to the back (box) room for our daughter but possibly using some rectangular trunking under the ceiling over to above her bed as it's built up onto the wall!

The unit is pretty quiet anyway and we were able to sleep easily when we did the open door experiment.

We also have the large ceiling fans that that work pretty well and are very quiet on 'slow'.

T i m

[sPoNiX]

We have one but it only does one room. Also, it's a bit of a problem knowing what to do with the duct.

sPoNiX

[sPoNiX]

The one we have is around 1000w iirc. It's currently £179 in B&Q.

sPoNiX

[Andrew]

That's the problem with sweeping generalisations, without explanation or consideration of individual factors.

See for yourself by measuring the temperature in your loft. If it's hotter than the rooms below then the heat can only go one way - down. Extra insulation will stop that. If the loft is cooler then more insulation will keep the heat in the rooms. I suspect your loft will be warmer and more insulation will be a good thing.

MBQ

[IMM]

In the USA in some states it is common to have a large fan on the gable end of the loft. This extracts all the hot air inside cooling the loft. They also use it to extract heavy moisture laden air to prevent condensation. Tests have proved that heavy insulation and a vapour barrier is best as the running cost, not mention the installation cost, of the fan is not worth it.

[Huge]

[17 lines snipped]

So common, in fact, that in some 27 years of regular visits to the US, I've never seen one.

[Tony Bryer]

Google gives 16,400 hits on "attic fan"

As this is a d-i-y group:

you instructions

[IMM]

Being in a boozy haze he would not see one. 27 years of visiting Mickey Mouse each time. My oh my!

[nightjar]

I have a two unit portable air conditioner. I can sleep with it on, but Barbara cannot. What I tend to do is use the air-con during the day to chill the bedroom to about 15C and leave it off overnight. It makes a nice refuge room during the day too, if I need to recover from excessive heat.

Colin Bignell

[N. Thornton]

If you feed the hot duct to the cooling side it'll cool it off, and there'll be no more hot air to get rid of ;)

Regards, NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

... if you ignore the laws of thermodynamics ;-)

[Graham Wilson]

Two Unit?

Graham

[Graham Wilson]

From memory, about 0.9kwh.

Haven't a clue how much a unit of electricity costs these days.

Graham

[Graham Wilson]

B&Q were doing three units at the time.

There was a basic unit providing 8,000 BTUs and then two Amcor units that provided 10,000 BTUs an 12,000 BTUs.

The basic 8,000 BTU unit had a fan only or air conditioning switch arrangement along with a themostatic control.

It was under £200 but looked very cheap and flimsey.

The 12,000 BTU had digital controls and a remote control. The remote control is useful because the unit is sitting on a shelf and the controls are on top of the unit.

Graham

[Graham Wilson]

How do you mean by external heat exchanger?

You say you fitted the exchanger on the north facing wall. Do you mean you fitted through the wall?

Wickes used to do a Phillips air conditioning unit a few years ago that was designed for a conservatory. The idea was that you made a square hole through the wall of the conservatory about 18 inches wide and about 12 inches high. The unit sat half inside and half outside. It was bolted onto a frame to prevent someone from sliding it out and entering the property through the hole.

Graham

[Graham Wilson]

As a solicitor, I got around this problem by lodging a successful appeal against the laws of thermodynamics.

(:-)

Graham

[Mary Fisher]

I'll remember that when I need a good solicitor.

If you were successful, that is ...

Mary

[Graham Wilson]

I was successful. It wasn't my fault that they decided to breach the order.

(:-)

Graham

[Andy Hall]

There's a much simpler solution. Leave the fridge door open....

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl