<story><title>Hacking Portable Air Conditioners</title><url>https://pmarks.net/ac/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esaym</author><text>&amp;gt;and there&amp;#x27;s very little change happening.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s honestly a lot happening and changing. Obviously you won&amp;#x27;t see it by buying &amp;quot;HVAC&amp;quot; junk from a box store. What this person should have done is paid an actual HVAC tech to install a ductless mini-split [0]. It would have been a heck of a lot more efficient. He states his one unit is drawing 10 amps (110 volt I assume). Whereas my american standard 4 ton (48,000 btu) unit draws 10 amps as well (240 volt) and cools a 2200 square ft house in 100+ degree texas weather with an electric bill usually not higher than $120 per month (1200 - 1400 kwh or so).&lt;p&gt;By comparison, at my old house (which was half the size, 1100 sq ft) with a much older 12 Seer unit, my electric bill was regularly over $200. I measured that unit at drawing 18 amps (at 240 volt) and it was only a 3 ton 36,000 btu out door unit.  The latest and greatest 21&amp;#x2F;22 seer units are even more efficient than my current one mentioned above (which is probably only 17 seer).&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americanstandardair.com&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;heating-and-cooling&amp;#x2F;ductless&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americanstandardair.com&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;heating-and-coo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>leoedin</author><text>This is interesting. We collectively spend _so much_ of our energy on heating and cooling buildings, and there&amp;#x27;s very little change happening.&lt;p&gt;The problems identified in the article are such low hanging fruit. Everywhere you look in residential housing there&amp;#x27;s huge efficieny gains to be made, but very little effort is going in to making them.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to find ways we can use technology to make housing more efficient. We need to - it&amp;#x27;s such a crucial pillar in dealing with climate change, and the vast majority of housing is so comically inefficient. The single tube air conditioners mentioned in the article are just the icing on the cake of all these massive energy wastes we accept because they&amp;#x27;re marginally more convenient. Does anyone know how to fix this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eigenvector</author><text>One of the biggest reasons portable air conditioners exist is for apartments. It&amp;#x27;s something anyone can buy without having to get permission from their landlord to make modifications to the property. So I would not compare them directly to anything that cannot be installed by a tenant without additional permission.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hacking Portable Air Conditioners</title><url>https://pmarks.net/ac/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esaym</author><text>&amp;gt;and there&amp;#x27;s very little change happening.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s honestly a lot happening and changing. Obviously you won&amp;#x27;t see it by buying &amp;quot;HVAC&amp;quot; junk from a box store. What this person should have done is paid an actual HVAC tech to install a ductless mini-split [0]. It would have been a heck of a lot more efficient. He states his one unit is drawing 10 amps (110 volt I assume). Whereas my american standard 4 ton (48,000 btu) unit draws 10 amps as well (240 volt) and cools a 2200 square ft house in 100+ degree texas weather with an electric bill usually not higher than $120 per month (1200 - 1400 kwh or so).&lt;p&gt;By comparison, at my old house (which was half the size, 1100 sq ft) with a much older 12 Seer unit, my electric bill was regularly over $200. I measured that unit at drawing 18 amps (at 240 volt) and it was only a 3 ton 36,000 btu out door unit.  The latest and greatest 21&amp;#x2F;22 seer units are even more efficient than my current one mentioned above (which is probably only 17 seer).&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americanstandardair.com&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;heating-and-cooling&amp;#x2F;ductless&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.americanstandardair.com&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;heating-and-coo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>leoedin</author><text>This is interesting. We collectively spend _so much_ of our energy on heating and cooling buildings, and there&amp;#x27;s very little change happening.&lt;p&gt;The problems identified in the article are such low hanging fruit. Everywhere you look in residential housing there&amp;#x27;s huge efficieny gains to be made, but very little effort is going in to making them.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love to find ways we can use technology to make housing more efficient. We need to - it&amp;#x27;s such a crucial pillar in dealing with climate change, and the vast majority of housing is so comically inefficient. The single tube air conditioners mentioned in the article are just the icing on the cake of all these massive energy wastes we accept because they&amp;#x27;re marginally more convenient. Does anyone know how to fix this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>p1mrx</author><text>Installing a mini-split would be a year-long project, including HOA negotiations, architectural design, electrical load calculations, city permits, and invasive construction.  It&amp;#x27;s not the sort of thing you&amp;#x27;d want to attempt at the beginning of a pandemic (or ever, for most people.)&lt;p&gt;Given the orders of magnitude less work required to find a product and click &amp;quot;Buy&amp;quot;, it&amp;#x27;d greatly benefit society for portable A&amp;#x2F;C manufacturers to compete on efficiency.</text></comment>