The highest room in the house gets very hot in the summer. We are going to be doing some minor building work up there soon anyway: mainly redecorating, but also opening up a bit of the currently dead space by moving a non-structural wall back a bit --- so this would be a good opportunity to do any ducting.
What kinds of air-conditioning things in the UK are good for cooling off a single room in the summer?
You can get DIY units. (For proper air con that is) Some time since I last looked it up. Alternative and cheapest is one of the free standing units with pipe stuck out of the window. They work up to a point down to a minimum of about 70F
You start by getting the insulation up to spec. That reduces the amount of aircon required (possibly down to none).
I fitted a couple over 8 years ago. One still works fine. The other stopped working when some building work was being done all around it, and was probably damaged by the builders.
IME, the type with a single elephant trunk don't work at all. Ones which can take two elephant trunks (inlet and exhaust for the condenser) can work, but are harder to find.
In our office we use the type of Aircon unit that wheels around and has a b ig six inch pipe that goes out of the window to discharge the warm air. It' s a Di Longhi one we got for about £250 from Costco about five years ago.
I've devised a way to seal the open sash window so that there's a socket fo r the exit pipe to connect to and keep the room sealed.
It does serve to make the room more comfortable in the hot days of summer b ut it's a bit noisy. The room is within the size limits the unit claims to be able to cool.
Any air source heat pump type device with an external sink/source and it will also work as a heater in winter with some gain.
If you can find a position where you can put a thin layer of insulation and aluminium foil facing inwards with another small airgap then you can significantly slow down the ingress of heat. You only need to do the SE/S/SW/W roof elevations unless it is a very shallow roof.
I did this to my garage door to make it cooler in midsummer. Before I insulated it would be too hot to work in in for a couple of hours after opening the big S facing doors on a sunny afternoon. The doors now get even hotter on their front but the inside surface stays cooler.
Basically you are managing the radiation of heat to the interior by putting a small amount of insulation in the way and then evening out the temperature with the foil. Aluminised bubble wrap will also work.
If its got thermal mass, ie is brick or concrete block built, running an extractor fan through the cool night keeps the room cooler during the day. Run cost is a tiny fraction of ac.
Fixing the insulation is very much a good thing, but try not to do it by losing thermal capacity.
Another option that works is a climbing plant on the exterior wall.
Ac is a bit of a no-brain option. Its normally possible to sort such situations without the excessive run cost or noise of ac.
The only window in the room is a sloped Velux. I guess with a little planning we could have a socket for the pipe included in the building work (moving the inside wall).
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