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It’s fascinating how little innovation there’s been in cheap air conditioning. For one, modern hvac is way too lossy by design. You spend thousands a year heati

It’s fascinating how little innovation there’s been in cheap air conditioning. For one, modern hvac is way too lossy by design. You spend thousands a year heating up an entire zone, which generally is your whole house unless you’re lucky enough to have zoned ducts and multiple air handlers. Even then you’re wasting a lot of energy cooling and heating areas you’re not even occupying. Mini-Split are too expensive to have installed by professionals. In the situation described in the article ideally the bed could be cooled somehow. Perhaps a device the size of a five gallon bucket filled with refrigerant circulating cool air around the bed somehow? Idk Edit: What I’d love to see is a window AC (Ptac maybe) that’s very large, say half a full sheet of plywood, so 4 x 4ft that’s 2in thin. Then you could actually fit this in like a window in between the walls. If it’s silent thru the use of an inverter it would be better than both a Mini-Split and a window ac due to the fact that it’s 16sqft footprint would afford it very large fans which could move the volume of air effectively silently.

ashleyn 5y ago
You would probably want to think about the design of the actual house more than thinking about gains in AC efficiency. There are unconventional home designs that passively make a home tend either cool or hot using the surrounding environment. Good luck dealing with the zoning board though.
- notimetorelax 5y ago
  They’re installing these [1] in the new buildings in Switzerland, it does keep the buildings comfortably cool. [1] https://www.jansen.com/en/plastic-solutions/products/geothermal-energy/thermal-earth-probes.html https://www.jansen.com/en/plastic-solutions/products/geother...
danuker 5y ago
> modern hvac is way too lossy by design I'd go further and say modern housing is unsustainable. Check out passive houses.
aulin 5y ago
Amazing how living in different parts of the world changes your perspective on everyday things, here (Italy) centralized AC is basically non-existent (and expensive), mini-splits are the norm but they're usually installed with a dedicated external motor for each room and very rarely with a single motor and a mini-split in each room.
deleted 5y ago
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gandalfian 5y ago
Largely agree but was impressed to see the U shaped Midea https://www.midea.com/us/Air-Conditioners/Window-Air-Conditioners/10,000-BTU-U-shaped-Air-Conditioner-MAW10V1QWT https://www.midea.com/us/Air-Conditioners/Window-Air-Conditi... only about $400 and slots under a sliding window, half inside the window and half outside with the window in-between. Virtually as good as a mini split but a fraction of the cost and trouble. Only for people with the right sort of window but still seemed an encouraging idea.

ashleyn 5y ago

You would probably want to think about the design of the actual house more than thinking about gains in AC efficiency. There are unconventional home designs that passively make a home tend either cool or hot using the surrounding environment. Good luck dealing with the zoning board though.

notimetorelax 5y ago
They’re installing these [1] in the new buildings in Switzerland, it does keep the buildings comfortably cool. [1] https://www.jansen.com/en/plastic-solutions/products/geothermal-energy/thermal-earth-probes.html https://www.jansen.com/en/plastic-solutions/products/geother...

danuker 5y ago

> modern hvac is way too lossy by design I'd go further and say modern housing is unsustainable. Check out passive houses.

aulin 5y ago

Amazing how living in different parts of the world changes your perspective on everyday things, here (Italy) centralized AC is basically non-existent (and expensive), mini-splits are the norm but they're usually installed with a dedicated external motor for each room and very rarely with a single motor and a mini-split in each room.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gandalfian 5y ago

Largely agree but was impressed to see the U shaped Midea https://www.midea.com/us/Air-Conditioners/Window-Air-Conditioners/10,000-BTU-U-shaped-Air-Conditioner-MAW10V1QWT https://www.midea.com/us/Air-Conditioners/Window-Air-Conditi... only about $400 and slots under a sliding window, half inside the window and half outside with the window in-between. Virtually as good as a mini split but a fraction of the cost and trouble. Only for people with the right sort of window but still seemed an encouraging idea.