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Maybe it's an Aussie thing, but most air conditioners I've seen are based in the living room. Most modern living rooms also don't have doors, meaning that these

Maybe it's an Aussie thing, but most air conditioners I've seen are based in the living room. Most modern living rooms also don't have doors, meaning that these air conditioners are cooling 3-4x the volume of air that the owner actually wants them to. At best, this wastes power. At worst, this wastes power and means the one room you actually want to cool doesn't get cooled properly. I've lived in a unit with a door in the same room as a split system and it was amazing. The room would become completely cool in around 5 minutes, then the compressor would shut off and run for maybe 2 minutes every 15 minutes or so to maintain this cool temperature.

gpm 5y ago
Canadian (Toronto) here, pretty much every air conditioner I've seen uses the same forced-air vent system as the furnace, and thus has outputs to every room of the house. Definitely sounds regional, but also we air condition the entire house so we aren't winning the efficiency war here.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  In my country (and most of East Asian countries I have been, like China, Japan, etc.) residential ACs are mostly in individual rooms (like this: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/air-condition-repair.jpg https://moderndiplomacy.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/air-co... ) . You would have one for the living room, one for each bedroom, etc. Central HVAC exists, but 90%+ homes don't have them. It's not as convenient and comfortable (one common problem older houses have is that there is no AC in kitchen) but the energy cost difference compared to the norm in the North America is night and day (the houses are significantly smaller here too).
- stephen_g 5y ago
  From what I've read and seen in videos about it, that seems to be the case in much of the US as well. In Australia you can get ducted systems, but at the residential scale it's both more expensive and less efficient than split systems. So houses will often have larger split units (5 - 10kW heat/cool capacity) in the main living areas and then smaller ones (2.5 - 3.5kW capacity) in all the bedrooms. Sometimes you have a multi-head system with one outdoor compressor unit and two or three indoor units. This is even the case for large apartment buildings (often have a separate AC compressor for each unit), but most office and commercial buildings have central AC.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
That makes sense if you actually want to only cool one room. Otherwise, you may want to have doors open/close independently of your cooling needs. I've spent some time trying to turn a portable AC unit into proper AC solution during the recent heatwaves over here in Poland, and the doors were a problem for me, not a solution. For example, I work in a study, and my wife continuously moves back and forth between kitchen and the living room. That's already 3 rooms to cool, 4 if you count the corridor (which shouldn't cause you a thermal shock every time you navigate it). Which doors are best closed or open depends on whether our kid is home. E.g. when she is at home, my study doors are closed, and I get to cook inside. I'm on a rental now, so I can't duct the apartment the way I'd like (also the reason I bought a portable unit), but on the next apartment, I plan to either have a split system with a terminal in every room, or a duct system for supply air from the AC unit. I understand that for large homes, some rooms may not see much use during the day - but in apartments, I can't imagine such a thing, unless you're living alone.

gpm 5y ago

Canadian (Toronto) here, pretty much every air conditioner I've seen uses the same forced-air vent system as the furnace, and thus has outputs to every room of the house. Definitely sounds regional, but also we air condition the entire house so we aren't winning the efficiency war here.

thrdbndndn 5y ago
In my country (and most of East Asian countries I have been, like China, Japan, etc.) residential ACs are mostly in individual rooms (like this: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/air-condition-repair.jpg https://moderndiplomacy.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/air-co... ) . You would have one for the living room, one for each bedroom, etc. Central HVAC exists, but 90%+ homes don't have them. It's not as convenient and comfortable (one common problem older houses have is that there is no AC in kitchen) but the energy cost difference compared to the norm in the North America is night and day (the houses are significantly smaller here too).
stephen_g 5y ago
From what I've read and seen in videos about it, that seems to be the case in much of the US as well. In Australia you can get ducted systems, but at the residential scale it's both more expensive and less efficient than split systems. So houses will often have larger split units (5 - 10kW heat/cool capacity) in the main living areas and then smaller ones (2.5 - 3.5kW capacity) in all the bedrooms. Sometimes you have a multi-head system with one outdoor compressor unit and two or three indoor units. This is even the case for large apartment buildings (often have a separate AC compressor for each unit), but most office and commercial buildings have central AC.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

That makes sense if you actually want to only cool one room. Otherwise, you may want to have doors open/close independently of your cooling needs. I've spent some time trying to turn a portable AC unit into proper AC solution during the recent heatwaves over here in Poland, and the doors were a problem for me, not a solution. For example, I work in a study, and my wife continuously moves back and forth between kitchen and the living room. That's already 3 rooms to cool, 4 if you count the corridor (which shouldn't cause you a thermal shock every time you navigate it). Which doors are best closed or open depends on whether our kid is home. E.g. when she is at home, my study doors are closed, and I get to cook inside. I'm on a rental now, so I can't duct the apartment the way I'd like (also the reason I bought a portable unit), but on the next apartment, I plan to either have a split system with a terminal in every room, or a duct system for supply air from the AC unit. I understand that for large homes, some rooms may not see much use during the day - but in apartments, I can't imagine such a thing, unless you're living alone.