I seriously consider it every year but the costs for what is typically a few days a few times a year puts me off. Our house is timber framed and well insulated so he typical temperature inside has been around 30c consistently for some time now; the bedroom gets up to 32c. Opening windows does nothing, neither does closing curtains. Jokingly I say ‘you can have it hot or you can have it hot with bugs” in reference to opening windows at night where it might be a bit cooler outside. Anyway opening windows does very little. However, having a timber framed house I’m very worried about letting people punch ducting holes through the external walls as most/all tradies seem to have little to no knowledge of how to deal with this type of construction. Bizarrely, as it isn’t new; I’d assume it would be better in Scotland.
We were on a road trip in Europe from 10th June to 4th July. First 3 days were 18c/19c and drizzly; 4th day was the right side of hot; 5th day onwards was blazing hot and we were unable to do very much as we really struggled with the heat. Unfortunately, the heatwave reappeared in the UK when we got back so we’ve not been comfortable since something like the 14th June. It’s very wearing trying to sleep in 30c-32c temps. Definitely back to seriously thinking about it: best would be ceiling mounted units that could be ducted in via the loft and thus pipework is outside the protected timber frame. That worked great for installing the ASHP. Speaking of which, I would seriously recommend people consider an air-to-air heat pump if they are looking to move in that direction as that does cooling and heating, potentially at 400%+ efficiency.
Wow, I grew up on Pacific islands so I was accustomed to 30C temps and high humidity but I don't think I could tolerate that anymore. I don't sleep well when temps are above 25C.
You might want to consider a mini-split AC unit to at least cool off your bedroom. They seem to do a good job and don't require ducting, although you still need a hole for the refrigerant lines. A lot of apartments buildings in my area (Portland, Oregon) have been installing them. They really work well if you have a well insulated room. My sister-in-law in Hawaii has a couple installed and they manage to do okay even with her poorly insulated house (she has solar to offset the energy inefficiency).
Yes, our ages are catching up with us and we're struggling now after a month of this! I am aware of multi-split units but my concern as noted is routing through the walls - the trades here just don't seem to understand the requirements. If it could route UP through the bedroom ceiling into the loft and then out and down to the outside unit that would work. I would think having a unit that could supply, say, 3 units would be ideal although I'm not sure where I would put the outdoor unit.
We're an all electric house with solar, battery, ASHP and a £0 bill last year so we have capacity to run AC during the summer weeks it is needed.
You could install a split unit yourself. It's not hard - I did a cheap one a few years ago and it was designed for DIY installation - came pre-filled with instructions about how to join the two units without losing all the gas !
You could install a split unit yourself. It's not hard - I did a cheap one a few years ago and it was designed for DIY installation - came pre-filled with instructions about how to join the two units without losing all the gas !
