Who's in the UK and has caved in and bought air conditioning?

My house has hot air heating - very much a 60s thing in the UK although I'm aware it's more common on other countries. I've been tempted to see if I could modify things to blow cooled air around the house when it's really hot, but have resisted so far.

To add to the other valid points, when you rent landlords often do the bare minimum, and don't want to be responsible for maintaining white goods, especially in an unfurnished property, and that would also include maintenance of an aircon unit. Then standalone units to be effective require modifying the property in some way, and landlords get upset when you're not "using their home as a home", despite the right to be left alone. Weird ego's get in the way.

Having the aircon unit I have easily adds £5/day when it runs all day to the electricity bill, doing that causes the electricity company to go "oh, you're using a lot of electricity per month! we need to re-assess how much you pay on your bills! we're upping your monthly payment!" and it isn't until a few months later, where they go "oh you're paying too much, we're reducing your monthly bill" and it ends up in a cycle, because with the electricity you kinda pay what you *might* use and it tries to estimate the cost. A spike skews that, which puts people off.

Wouldn't it still reflect off the aluminium backplate onto the rear of the panel ?

I could blow the air behind the panels, but to get his efficiency he was actually bonding metal angle irons to the back of the panels which blocks the backside..

Is this with forced air or just passive ventilation ?

It's forced air with window fans.  Passive ventilation doesn't work for me in the amount of time available at night unless there is a huge differential.  One of the differences between summer and winter is that the large capacitors of the attic and crawlspace are hot in the summer and cold in the winter, so that aids the cool down in the winter.  I do have a solar attic vent, but that doesn't run at night.

What was the break even point ?

It was about 24 MWh, so about 4 1/2 years.

ralphjy said:

I wouldn't have been able to do it with as much efficiency as he achieved because I have bi-facial glass panels, so I can't attach to the backside without compromising performance.

White / aluminium fans ? 

Wouldn't it still reflect off the aluminium backplate onto the rear of the panel ? 

ralphjy said:

I ventilate the house in the late evening

Is this with forced air or just passive ventilation ? I'm surprised at the lack of passive cooling I'm getting here even with a 9C difference in temperature. In Winter time, that would have equalised in a matter of minutes.

ralphjy said:

when we have extended hot days and overnight temps stay above 18 C - I can't cool the house enough to reduce the AC runtime

When I made that comment I was thinking mainly about reducing bedroom temperature by about 10C for a decent night's sleep. So running a small AC unit for a few hours before bedtime after either solar charging a battery during the daytime or selling it back to the grid.

ralphjy said:

The system just passed 46 MWh total, so I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Congrats. What was the break even point ?

Nice video.  I considered adding fans early in the life of the system when I saw the thermal degradation in the summer.  I wouldn't have been able to do it with as much efficiency as he achieved because I have bi-facial glass panels, so I can't attach to the backside without compromising performance.

My system is old enough now (8 1/2 years) and I am considerably older, so I wouldn't tackle that scale of project to try to improve it.  Probably not worth the investment.  I would have considered it to extend the life of the panels, but honestly in 20 years I probably won't care even if I'm still alive.

I ventilate the house in the late evening, so in general in the summer I can produce enough energy for the AC, but when we have extended hot days and overnight temps stay above 18 C - I can't cool the house enough to reduce the AC runtime.  

The system just passed 46 MWh total, so I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Not fitted your fans yet ?

Do you REALLY get enough out of your solar panel?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt9qLRN7JvA

But I'd imagine you could still harvest enough in summer with a modest solar setup even at reduced performance to run an AC setup ?

Hope that you're able to stay cool.  It's only gotten up to 39 C at my house so far this year.  In 2021 around this time, the Pacific Northwest had a "heat dome" and Portland had 3 consecutive days above 40 C with the record high temp being 47 C.  There were 123 heat related deaths in Oregon due to that event; 72 were in the Portland metro area.  There has been a large effort to mitigate heat related deaths since then (cooling centers and AC for low income and elderly people) and so far this year there have only been 4 heat related deaths in the metro area.  The world is definitely not prepared for climate change.

Wow.

Seriously thinking about it