Too hot? can't sleep? I'm thinking about you..

[Welly]

Mindfull of our brief? occassional? increasingly? hot summers, this year I decided to do something about the incredible heat build up upstairs in our house.

I hate it when it's too hot to sleep, you keep waking up, the windows' open and the birds/traffic wake you up early, you've got to go work in the morning....

So, me and my work collegue fitted this........


























And this..


And a clever fridge-man did this...


Yep, I now have 5000 watts of Japan's finest direct-expansion split air conditioning

Last night I set 21 deg on the controller and left it in 'auto' mode..


Backed up by my digi thermometer/hygrometer on the upstairs landing..


All bedroom doors open, all windows closed, Duvet's on, and we all slept soundly and quietly

It is THE best thing I've ever fitted in a house for sure. It also cools significanty downstairs too although I was only really concerned with the bedrooms to begin with.

Sorry for the willy-waving but I was thinking of you all last night, honest

[STALLED]

Nice choice with the Daikin - they are considered the best out there in the world of air conditioning and really popular here!

Question - how hot does it get in the UK and at night?

It was a pleasant 8 degrees here today. This is what my backyard looked like!

[Welly]

The trouble with houses here is that the heat rises and stays in the bedrooms at night and also the attic roof space gets to about 40 deg and that heat transfers into the bedooms too. The only thng you can do it open the windows or run a fan or something.

Yesterday the air temp was about 25 deg C but this weekend was sunny and hot for most with highs of around 27/28 deg. Indoors you will normally get about 25/26 deg when it's been hot maybe more, but really humid and uncomfortable.

The Daikin is superb, it's really really quiet (swing compressor) in fact this model was aimed at the Australian market I found out. It's only been running for two weeks and I cleaned the filters yesterday (was surprised at how dirty they were) also has a photocatalytic deodorising system

[steve_earwig]

It is THE best thing I've ever fitted in a house for sure. It also cools significanty downstairs too although I was only really concerned with the bedrooms to begin with.

Just wait 'til you get your tizzy bill

[STALLED]

The trouble with houses here is that the heat rises and stays in the bedrooms at night and also the attic roof space gets to about 40 deg and that heat transfers into the bedooms too. The only thng you can do it open the windows or run a fan or something.

Yesterday the air temp was about 25 deg C but this weekend was sunny and hot for most with highs of around 27/28 deg. Indoors you will normally get about 25/26 deg when it's been hot maybe more, but really humid and uncomfortable.

The Daikin is superb, it's really really quiet (swing compressor) in fact this model was aimed at the Australian market I found out. It's only been running for two weeks and I cleaned the filters yesterday (was surprised at how dirty they were) also has a photocatalytic deodorising system

Yeah the humidity is the real killer. In Sydney when the humidity is 90% + but with a 25 degree ambient air temp we all just crank the sh*t out of the air con!

I'm pretty sure that my grandmother has the same unit. If it is, it works bloody well! Sydney gets warm but not that insanely hot. The worst day I have experienced was NYD 2006 where it hit 48 degrees centigrade in the city then followed by an awesome summer storm. Not too fun considering how hungover everyone was...

Double brick also helps with keeping the house cool! We are lucky we live in an older place (1913) which is double brick! We don't even have air-con installed at home...

[Welly]

Just wait 'til you get your tizzy bill

I did consider this and the whole lot consumes 1700 watts (7.2amps) when flat out, only it doesn't always run - it cycles on and off. The compressor has a soft start, the indoor unit uses 300 watts, and there's a huge fan in the outdoor unit.

I thought it would use more than this, but yes, the leccy bill will take a hit

[mjb]

Niiiiice! This is probably the biggest reason I wish I could get a 100% mortgage and buy a house

I've got a 3kW "portable" thing in my bedroom with the output hose hung out the window. The trouble is it's BLOODY noisy and shakes the whole house

Mind you I had it on over the weekend and I was still swimming in bed

[DaiRees]

Right Welly, I have a very important question for you, bearing in mind we're currently looking into building an extension it would be an ideal time to fit one of those, so how much would I need to add to my budget?

Also are you telling me that that one unit is sufficient to cool the whole upstairs? Is it in a bedroom or on the landing?

[Welly]

The indoor unit is on the upstairs landing and cools the bedrooms if you leave the doors open, then the cooling goes down the stairs, the hallway and the lounge. This is quite a big unit at 5kw and most you see are about 3kw so the bigger unit will obviously cool a larger area etc.

This system cost me nothing well it did in a way- the company owed me some money after things were tight last year and I negociated this as my pay back (I'd have never shelled out my own money on this in one go).

A system like this would cost around £2,500.00 there's a few DIY splits around on the interweb but I'd recommend one of the big boys like Daikin, Fujitsu, Panasonic, Mitsubishi etc.

It may seem a bit OTT for this country but right now it's the best thing ever invented

[DaiRees]

Yeah, EVERY year I say I'm gonna get a portable one for the bedrooms but we never do

I'd certainly consider one of those instead. We'll have to see what the quotes are like for the extension, and whether we can run to the extra, but I'd love to go for it.

Mind you I reckon we'll end up in the middle of winter with the air con and the heating both on full blast!!!

[DaiRees]

[rant mode]

And another thing.... why do people not understand temperature controlled systems?? One of the factories I visit has digitally controlled air con in their canteen and Quality Lab. the Lab is fine, maintained at 21deg, but the canteen is all over the place, someone comes in and decides it's warm, so they turn the air con on and press the "-" button until it's as low as it'll go, in a few minutes it's pretty bloody chilly so someone else gets up and switches the bloody thing off . 10 mins and it's boiling again!! "PICK A NUMBER and stick to it people!!!!" I'd set it to 21 and remove the controller if I was the boss

I've also noticed several people doing this with their cars recently, why??

[/rant mode]

[steve_earwig]

You'll probably find that's the difference between people coming from hot places wanting to cool off while they're there and people who come in from air conditioned offices and wonder why it's so bluddy cold in there and none of them are in there long enough to give a toss how anyone else feels.

I do tend to bugger about with the climate in my car, it's usually set a few degrees below what it is outside but if I've been cooking outside it gets wound all the way down until I start cooling off, then I set it to something more sensible. That is until I'm nearing the end of the journey, when I usually wind it up slowly so it's the same as, or if possible a little bit more than the outside temperature, so I don't faint when I get outside.

[ianst28]

i generally just turn the air con in the car to bloody cold all the way home from work then when her indoors gets in later she moans that it's too bloody cold in there lol

[steve_earwig]

[Double brick also helps with keeping the house cool! We are lucky we live in an older place (1913) which is double brick! We don't even have air-con installed at home...

We call that cavity wall, does that mean yours is filled with something? In the UK you can get someone come and fill that with something similar to styrofoam/polystyrene, it's like making your walls a foot thicker and it slows the passage of heat through them - i.e. in the summer it takes the heat longer to get in and in the winter longer to get out.

Here they make houses out of huge ceramic blocks with rendering both sides, so there is no cavity. For insulation they stick 2" of tongue & grooved polystyrene on the outside of your house, then render over it. My other half's is done like this (still waiting for the damned builder to finish mine ), she also has a layer in her loft as well as concrete made with polystyrene beads over the top of it. She has no air con but on the hottest day (upper 30s) the heat is just making it through at the end of the day, when you can throw all the windows open anyway.

The other thing that helps is shutters on the outside of the windows, almost every house here has them on every window, you stick them down to stop the sun shining inside and, if necessary, open them up when they're in the shade, they also have slots between the slats so you get light in the room if you pull them up a bit. They're available in a range of colours but you're nuts if you have anything other than white or light grey/silver. It'd look mad in England I suppose, but perhaps you guys could use Venecian blinds just inside the glass to achieve a similar effect.

Btw I hear that cavitiy wall insulation done in the early days is now decomposing and leaching through both ways, nice.

[Welly]

perhaps you guys could use Venecian blinds just inside the glass to achieve a similar effect

I have these on every window