Team-BHP - The home / office air-conditioner thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prowler (Post 5759279)

Set it to 21 and set the fan speed to auto. Set the sleep mode also which would quietly increase the temperature settings by one degree every hour(most ac will allow you to set the temp/hour as per your convenience). If you sleep for 8 hours, it will end up at 29 degrees by the time you wake up.

21 degrees is too cold I feel, especially when the AC has removed all the humidity from the room. From a energy point of view as well, 21 is very inefficient.AC will consume a lot of electricity to bring down the room 21 degrees - unless the room is has minimal air leakage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki (Post 5759545)

I agree 21 degree C is a bit too cold. But the idea was to give sufficient headroom for the 1 degree/hour sleep mode.
As for the energy efficiency, the thermostat sits on the intake side and decides it has cooled the room to the set temperature even if the far corner of the room is hot. As a result, the compressor winds down after some time as if the entire room is cooled. We can see this in our office hall - where the AC is at one end and when set to 18 degree C, it winds down to maintenance mode of around 600 VA after about 30 min.

I have a Panasonic Inverter Split AC 1.5 ton in our bedroom. We set it to 24 Degrees and Fan on auto mode. The room gets chilled in no time. More often than not, we increase the temp to 25 Degrees. Our practice is letting the AC make the temp comfortable to sleep and then switch it off after around 3 hrs and switch on the ceiling fan for the rest of the night. Works wonders and sleep is never disturbed.

I don't understand what is going to be achieved by setting the AC at 20 degrees instead of 24 degrees. In the current climate it is not going to matter. For the initial couple or three hours both will make no difference because the compressor will be running whether the set temperature is 20 or 24. The difference will come only after the room has cooled to 24 degrees.

Whatever temperature we set, the air that comes out of the AC will be at 18 or 16 degrees, according to the lowest temperature of the particular Ac. It can't be varied even if we set the Ac at 26 degrees. It is just that the thermostat will cut off once the desired temperature is reached. 24-26 is achievable in a few hours given the current climate. I don't think 20 or 21 will be achieved even if the compressor runs throughout the night. So it will never cut off.

This is where I am enjoying our new Panasonic wifi AC.
It's default sleep profile works perfectly at night. At times I use my own custom profile too with 1 degree less than default profile.

Also the power consumption graph is doing justice to this sleep profile. Attaching screenshots for both.

AC is on cool mode and Fan speed is at Auto for the same.

^^ Not really. I keep the Ac at 27-28 when the temperature outside is at high 30s or 40+, with ceiling fan on, and feel comfortable too.

Know what? The issue at coastal places is the high humidity. It is actually the humidity which bothers one more than the temperature. And once the Ac reduces the humidity inside the room to half, one will feel super comfortable. And it will take only about 40 minutes for that to happen.

^^^ There is difference between outside temperature and ambient room temperature. It can be 41degC outside under hot sun but room temperature may be lesser around 35degC influenced by building structure elements like RCC roof, plastered walls, glass windows and ventilation.

And room ACs just don't take outside hot air but recycle inside air. So the temperature difference to bring down to set point like 25degC is quite normal. Even this higher ambient temperature difference matters only during initial condition. Once the room is cooled, it is the rate of heat addition that matters as it is just hysteris curve to manage within few degC.

Most of these parameters are well controlled in night condition (lower room ambient temperature at start up, no frequent opening of closed space, fixed number of people, metabolism rate of human body during sleep) and any brand ACs can easily handle them.

^^Agreed. When outside temperature is 35 or 36, inside the room it will be 27-30. I have a wall clock in the bedroom that has a hygrometer and a thermometer. Can't say very accurate, but it serves the purpose. I set the Ac temperature a few degrees less than the temperature it indicates. When the hygrometer needle falls to half it's previous level, one feels very comfortable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashvek3141 (Post 5745960)

So , after this 'wet' cleaning procedure the AC performance has improved and the cooling is much better. The irregular 'blowing' noise too is gone. However , it still isn't silent like it was 3 years back (when new).

Quick update: Post this cleaning activity, our 4 years old Daikin 1.5 Inverter AC is working pretty good. :thumbs up

The blower / fan noise has also subsided, and I wouldn't mind saying that it's back 'normal'.

Cooling is better too and now we maintain the AC temperature @ 24 - 25 degrees, Fan on Auto and the ceiling fan at 2 / 3 speed. Helps to keep the room temperature pretty pleasant.

Hope that it stays the same. I will ensure to get the deep / wet cleaning done once in a year atleast. However, the AC tech mentioned that since our AC is used everyday, if I manage to just clean the filters every month; this problem of clogging will not re-occur (atleast for 1.5 - 2 years).

Although this is an AC thread but posting a query for air coolers.

The rented place where my family stays does not have any options to install the AC - Window or split. So the only alternative is to have an Air cooler. Considering we are already in a heat wave, cooler is required even more now as the temperature in Pune are breaking records. Need a suggestion for Air Cooler to cool a 140 sqft room (basically a study room doubling as bedroom too for my son studying in Class 12). Budget is 10K (max but can stretch a bit for a verifiable trustworthy unit).

The Brand that comes to immediate mind is Symphony but reviews online in Amazon has not been encouraging. I am told the newer players such as Bajaj, Crompton, Hindware etc are selling some value for money units.

Which AC brands are everyone recommending these days? Specifically I'm looking for those "built like a tank" ACs of old if they still exist.

None of the new age ACs from the following brands gives me confidence:
1. Voltas (bought in 2008) replaced after a few years due to bad performance. The compressor itself went weak after about 7-8 years. No amount of servicing could fix that
2. Sanyo (bought in 2019) leaks refrigerant badly and requires a refill every 6-8 months. Tech told me it was easier to replace than fix it if there are more leaks.
3. Carrier (bought in 2021) also leaked refrigerant badly and had to be refilled after an year. Has a weird roller fan design that needs to be cleaned every 6 months by detaching the indoor unit's entire plastic shell.

Whereas the Electrolux AC bought in early 2000s is still going just fine. No refrigerant refills and the only complaint was it needed a new capacitor after more than 15 years. Sadly Electrolux seems to have gone out of business but preferably I'm looking for "tank" ACs like this. The stuff that runs for 30 years.

Also IME the new multi-inverter ACs are a total waste of money. No energy savings whatsoever.
I have a 1.2 ton Carrier that used to use 100-150 units per month when new but in the heat now is using 350-400 units per month. Even after a gas refill and cleaning prior to summer it was using 250 units/mo. Those initial savings are nowhere to be seen, the expense and added complexity of this thing is all that remains. I doubt it will last even a few more years at this point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghodlur (Post 5761205)

The Brand that comes to immediate mind is Symphony but reviews online in Amazon has not been encouraging. I am told the newer players such as Bajaj, Crompton, Hindware etc are selling some value for money units.

In Bangalore, I had two desert coolers from Ram Coolers, Nagpur (Gold 500). Each cooler made about 700 sq ft area on each floor of my house very comfortable during summers. These worked for 7-8 years without any failure. I had bought these online and on their website and these were shipped to Bangalore by the company. Prior to that I had a plastic bidy cooler from Bajaj which was utter waste of money with no cooling.