This funny meme is also a good example of survivorship bias. There are both good and shitty ACs from both eras. We're just only comparing to the good old ACs because the shitty ones already broke.
While I agree with you past generations weren't swamped with infinite selections of shitty versions of products at their fingertips. Think it feels worse now because it's harder to find the good stuff these days
It's had a lot to do with manufacturers trying to cater to a certain price point where they can maximize sales and profits, rather than simply trying to make the best product they can make. It leads to a lot of cheap garbage.
That's a very valid point. Today's ease of access to a wider variety of sources is vastly different to the pre-internet era of appliance shopping. Back then, we just went to the nearest Sears or some other appliance warehouse to try them out. They'd have just a few different models available, so those were all your options. The other method of purchase was through direct shipping catalogs, where you hoped the product you bought didn't actually suck.
That is true, although earlier generations didn't have access to as many different variations of a product, most of the ones available to them were the high-end versions. The trade-off is that they costed much more due to being a more premium product and being new on the market.
Reliability exists, just don’t buy crap. Invest and reap the efficiency. Personally, I’ve spent years with mini-splits and never had this filter problem crap, everything just works and for less than half the cost.
You can have a super efficent one that's reliable. Not gonna be super cheap, though. But they exist, as server rooms and critical infrastructure has to be cooled as well. Mitsubishi Heavy makes stuff like that for example.
It's another one of those weird non-metric units. In the world of air conditioning (or cooling in general), a "ton" is the amount of cooling you'd get from melting a ton (a short ton - that is 2000 pounds) of ice that's already near its melting point. Air conditioners are usually rated in tons per day, with 1-5 tons about right for a typical apartment or house, depending on things like square footage and climate.
A quick idea of what cooling/heating you need is your square footage (assuming 8ft ceilings) x 20.
So 600 sq ft of area would need a 1 ton AC or 12,000BTU. Again complicated by outdoor temperature, insulation of the home, and other factors.
Anyway, what the op was saying, for the same tonnage (cooling capacity) old ACs used a ton of electricity. Newer split units are crazy efficient.
Like in 2000 the new requirement for a home AC was a SEER (cooling vs electric usage) of 10. The higher the rating, the less electricity used for a given cooling capacity.
Nowadays you can get the cheaper split units which have ratings of 19-23 SEER2. So they use half or less than half the electricity for the same cooling. Also they can work as heaters in a pinch.
Edit: Quick googling shows that ACs from the 80s could be as inefficient as 6-7 SEER. So a modern 21 SEER2 unit would use 1/3rd the electricity!
Heck, early refrigeration systems used friggen ammonia as it's refrigerant of choice. Works good at being compressed and evaporated, shame about it being poison.
Weird my mini split is a workhorse. It doesn't give two shits about dust, dirt, ice, rain, or snow. It has heated the house in single digits and cooled the house in triple digits (both F). 10/10. Best $1800 I ever spent.
I wouldn’t say nanoseconds… might be my system with multiple units,but one can take a minute to get its bearings. Once on though I really only need one unit for the whole place despite having 3.
@EmoDuck@The_Picard_Maneuver
Don't many German cars have "airco"? 😅
Anyway, in rare cases it's to moisturize the inside air, some are able to heat, but most of them are used to cool down temperatures in a room or building (like in supermarkets in summer) and are a common thing in resident houses in the hotter parts of the world...
I think it gets its name from being able to condition the air temperature... 😅
So on the whole somee are able to heat thing is going to be dependent on where you live, put where I love most heatpumps (air conditioners) that are whole home units or minisplits are reversible heatpump meaning they can both heat and cool
We need to figure out how to retrofit those old machines to be as efficient as the new ones, and be clean and pigeon free. Then we can keep them around.
Is there any reason a window unit couldn’t be a heat pump? My understanding is the difference is just about a single valve to reverse the direction of the coolant.
It's not that they shut off, it's that many units are sized so questionable for the square footage they are able to cool that the filter being dusty or clean is the difference between being able to cool the room to the target temperature or not.
No. Industrial air conditioning units are showing the same thing. They are getting lighter and better at cooling.
Control panels some times need air conditioners. Old enough companies, like my ex-employer, can even pull up records to show that the shipping weights are going down. Lost a bet with my old boss about this.
Yes the older models are the little engine that could. (come to think of it most of you are too young to get that reference). The expensive big one threw a belt and became useless after four years.
But I moved to a place where I'm on the shady side of the building and as a result all I need are fans.
I miss my old really noisy air conditioner window unit. I loved the noise from it, it drowned out other sounds and I got better sleep. My room air filters generate some decent white noise effects, but it's just not the same.
The best part about window units is the dank freezer smell they emit. Sometimes I just stand there and smell it while enjoying the cool air on my face.
As heat waves are becoming more common, lots more people are wanting air conditioning in places where it was previously seen as a waste of money. Retrofitting existing housing with central air generally isn't feasible, so all types of air conditioning have their place. The worst are portable units, but in a lot of places they're the only option that works.
Mini splits air conditioners (the one on the right) have some major advantages over central air.
With central air there's one big condenser and evaporator for the whole house and dampers are used to block the chilled/heated air to zones that aren't requesting for air. Since all the zones share the same air source, the more zones that need heated/cooled the slower it'll take. This system also prevents one zone from requesting heating while another requests cooling as the system can only do one at a time.
Now with mini splits each zone gets it's own condenser and evaporator meaning each zone is free to heat/cool to each zones needs and airflow isn't effected by other zones. The biggest reason why mini splits are better though is because if there is an issue you'll only lose one zone instead of the entire HVAC as you would with a central unit.
Consider a series of smaller units and one outdoor unit. Together they do the exact same thing as your central ac but for 1/4 of the price.
Imagine 1/4th the electric bill! Then look at your current setup and ask yourself whatever you need about the east coast, as long as you need… everyone else has the same cooling as you with 1/4 the cost. Sooo central or bust amiright? Keep paying / throwing away your money, more than everyone else… and why?
Look into the engineering of evaporating and condensing a material in a slightly different way than you are used to… it’s not weird.
Forget the hippy shit. You are paying 4-5x the cost for the same result. Feel free to keep throwing away money. The rest of us don’t care. We’re not on the “east coast” but we pay less than you regardless…