Air Conditioners - a necessity or a nuisance?

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Comments

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #32

    AC is not needed, if you're  hot take you're jumper off , if you're cold leave it on Cool

    Ah, mixing personal opinions with facts there?

    I very much like air con.  I'm a naturally very hot person who often walks around in shorts in winter and struggles with heat in most workplaces

    As do many others.

    Please don't think that your personal situation is a fact for the rest of the world

    Plenty of people are the opposite of me, and need a room to be lots warmer.  They do have the advantage of adding layers to keep warm.

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #33

    We have a  unit called Cool My Camper, it travels in the car and we use it when settled  for some time,we had it on last week when the afternoon temperatures  were in the mid thirties  to get the van a bit cooler for later . I have mixed feelings as to how
    useful it is and  with it being much less convenient than the built in models but for the extended  stay we have each year in an hopefully  hot place I wouldn't  have bothered getting it

    I've been looking at those a lot - I appreciate they're probably not as powerful as standard units.  But are they really not very good for cooling a room?

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #34

    I can understand how air con could be helpful cooling a hot van in the evening if touring in France Spain ect . but on in the daytime I'd much rather be out and about not sat inside a van . 

    Some people struggle with heat, especially abroad, and need to get out of it for a while.

    In Spain I often take an hour out of it in a cooled room.  Otherwise I'd be unwell later in the day.

    Doesn't happen so much in the UK, of course.  But I still struggle to sleep on a night when its hot.  I have aircon in my home for the same reason.

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #35

    Air conditioning systems are not by default noisy, the problem arises when trying to drop temperatures by to much therebyecausing the unit to work overtime. For efficient use the space being cooled needs to be enclosed!! as in no doors or windows open otherwise
    you are just trying to cool the planet! so given this the thermal insulation of the unit trying to be cooled needs to be taken into account? So less windows more walls equals better effeciency . Fact!! automotive aircon will only reduce the ambient temperature
    by 12% its the direct airflow that makes it feel cold!! So basically you are fighting a loosing battle if you think your aircon does anything more than make you feel more comfortable. and that is usually acheived by a reduction in water content in the air
    not by a reduction in temperature

    Jeffrey C Cook CAE MiMi Bosch,Delphi.Hella Tech trainer

    Please explain how the air coming out of my car air con is 5C when its 20C outside.

    Same with my household unit.

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #36

    If you get too hot in a motorhome or caravan, may I suggest a mystical place, they call them 'hotels' in some parts and they have this thing called 'air-con' and I've even heard from some sources that they have 'heating devices' too.

    I've only heard this from a friend of a friends uncles mums cleaner from the deapest darkest depths of Peru so they may not exist.
    Laughing

    Park next to me with a noisy air con and you'll be turning it off whther you like it or not.
    Wink

    Ah, another "if you don't like what I like, you are wrong" post.  Hey, if you don't like sharing a space with lots of other people and getting along with them, there are these things called Hotels, that have individual rooms where you can be on your own
    and not be disturbed.

    And good luck telling me what I can and can't do on my own pitch.

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #37

    Sorry for the multitude of posts - but I just read the whole thread and replied as I went.

    Mind, if someone's AC is really loud, then they need to get that sorted and be very mindful of when they run it if its really needed.

  • Oneputt
    Oneputt Club Member Posts: 9,145 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 2016 #38

    Not a problem Peter, but reading some of your post it doesn't seem you get 'tongue in cheek'Happy

  • huskydog
    huskydog Club Member Posts: 5,460 ✭✭✭✭✭
    1000 Comments
    edited May 2016 #39

    AC is not needed, if you're  hot take you're jumper off , if you're cold leave it on Cool

    Ah, mixing personal opinions with facts there?

    I very much like air con.  I'm a naturally very hot person who often walks around in shorts in winter and struggles with heat in most workplaces

    As do many others.

    Please don't think that your personal situation is a fact for the rest of the world

    Plenty of people are the opposite of me, and need a room to be lots warmer.  They do have the advantage of adding layers to keep warm.

    I must apologise for my sense of humourCoolSmileLaughing 

  • chasncath
    chasncath Forum Participant Posts: 1,659
    1000 Comments
    edited May 2016 #40

    When temperatures on the Continent get up into the thirties, we find that a visit to a local supermarket can offer a welcome cooling down. If you're really overheated, then a linger near the frozen foods section should do the trick.Cool

  • ChemicalJasper
    ChemicalJasper Forum Participant Posts: 437
    edited May 2016 #41

    I would personally love a/c, because hate being too hot and love gadgets.....alas, it's currently not within my budget!

    I did note that there is now more energy expended on cooling (one might say a luxury... especially say things like  the worlds largest artificial snow slope in the middle of the desert), than there is on heating.

    Perhaps a frivolous use of the planets limited and dwindling natural resources! 

  • jennyc
    jennyc Forum Participant Posts: 957
    500 Comments
    edited May 2016 #42

    Complaining about people using Aircon, in any form, is like trying to stem the tide. Aircon in buildings has been around for decades, cars too have almost universally benefitted from Aircon - even in the UK where naysayers have historically claimed that
    there is no need. The simple truth is that on hot days, in any country, caravan/ motor home internal, or even ambient outside temperatures can become uncomfortably hot, so a growing trend towards using Aircon is inevitable, mitigated for the moment, by cost,
    weight and an increase in the height of most leisure vehicle's centre of gravity. Interestingly, NASA undertook studies to find the ideal temperature for maximising human efficiency, as part of their space race in the 1960s. Their findings indicated that what
    they called 'a shirt sleeve environment' proved to be optimum. Which is why a long journey in an air conditioned car is far less tiring than uncoil led journeys in the past.

  • jeffcc
    jeffcc Forum Participant Posts: 430
    edited May 2016 #43

    Air conditioning systems are not by default noisy, the problem arises when trying to drop temperatures by to much therebyecausing the unit to work overtime. For efficient use the space being cooled needs to be enclosed!! as in no doors or windows open otherwise
    you are just trying to cool the planet! so given this the thermal insulation of the unit trying to be cooled needs to be taken into account? So less windows more walls equals better effeciency . Fact!! automotive aircon will only reduce the ambient temperature
    by 12% its the direct airflow that makes it feel cold!! So basically you are fighting a loosing battle if you think your aircon does anything more than make you feel more comfortable. and that is usually acheived by a reduction in water content in the air
    not by a reduction in temperature

    Jeffrey C Cook CAE MiMi Bosch,Delphi.Hella Tech trainer

    Please explain how the air coming out of my car air con is 5C when its 20C outside.

    Same with my household unit.

    because i was refering to the actual ambient air temperature within the given space not the temperature of the air coming out of the air con vents,

  • ChemicalJasper
    ChemicalJasper Forum Participant Posts: 437
    edited May 2016 #44

    Air conditioning systems are not by default noisy, the problem arises when trying to drop temperatures by to much therebyecausing the unit to work overtime. For efficient use the space being cooled needs to be enclosed!! as in no doors or windows open otherwise you are just trying to cool the planet! so given this the thermal insulation of the unit trying to be cooled needs to be taken into account? So less windows more walls equals better effeciency . Fact!! automotive aircon will only reduce the ambient temperature by 12% its the direct airflow that makes it feel cold!! So basically you are fighting a loosing battle if you think your aircon does anything more than make you feel more comfortable. and that is usually acheived by a reduction in water content in the air not by a reduction in temperature

    Jeffrey C Cook CAE MiMi Bosch,Delphi.Hella Tech trainer

    Please explain how the air coming out of my car air con is 5C when its 20C outside.

    Same with my household unit.

    because i was refering to the actual ambient air temperature within the given space not the temperature of the air coming out of the air con vents,

    Jeff, sorry, that still does not make sense. If you continue to remove heat from a space, the space will continue to cool until either, there is no further difference in temperature between the exchanger and the space or the input of heat into the space and the removal of heat from the space are balanced,  either way, that does not tally with your previous percentage and water content comments 

  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,671 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 2016 #45

    Air con is like dishwashers (at home) and Alde heating in your caravan or MH........once you've had it you really like it!

  • petertr
    petertr Forum Participant Posts: 199
    edited May 2016 #46

    Air conditioning systems are not by default noisy, the problem arises when trying to drop temperatures by to much therebyecausing the unit to work overtime. For efficient use the space being cooled needs to be enclosed!! as in no doors or windows open otherwise you are just trying to cool the planet! so given this the thermal insulation of the unit trying to be cooled needs to be taken into account? So less windows more walls equals better effeciency . Fact!! automotive aircon will only reduce the ambient temperature by 12% its the direct airflow that makes it feel cold!! So basically you are fighting a loosing battle if you think your aircon does anything more than make you feel more comfortable. and that is usually acheived by a reduction in water content in the air not by a reduction in temperature

    Jeffrey C Cook CAE MiMi Bosch,Delphi.Hella Tech trainer

    Please explain how the air coming out of my car air con is 5C when its 20C outside.

    Same with my household unit.

    because i was refering to the actual ambient air temperature within the given space not the temperature of the air coming out of the air con vents,

    I still struggle to believe that.  Its been 30C in the UK before, and I'm siting in a mobile greenhouse, yet my car aircon keeps me cool.

    Clarkson drove a car through a burning building, eating an ice cream!

  • Surfer
    Surfer Club Member Posts: 1,303
    500 Comments 100 Likes
    edited May 2016 #47

    Thursday was hot and humid and it was bliss for us and the dogs as I switched on the air on for the first time this year!

  • IamtheGaitor
    IamtheGaitor Forum Participant Posts: 529
    edited May 2016 #48

    We had one on one of our vans and also on the RV but we rarely used it on either as it was too noisy in the day never mind at night.