Air conditioning installation costs

Simonon77

john.h said:

Simonon77 said:

I  have a portable ( large one ) and find it fine for cooling a room. It only really needs to run for 15 - 20 minutes to get it nice and chilly. Wall mounted ones are nice, but to be honest how many days do we need to use them in the UK ?  Paying £5K for something you use 2 weeks a year is pretty expensive.

What about the rest of the year you can use them to heat the room?

They aren't particularly efficient for doing that though as they are electric. Gas central heating is much better. 

john.h

I had my 3.5kw air con unit running for 9 hours last night, it used 1.3kw of electric. So about 27p on my rate. Heating I don’t know the costs yet, but will find out in the winter. 

SuperHung

If you do install aircon which can also heat during winter, don't forget it is VAT zero rated. 

ComicGeek

Simonon77 said:

john.h said:

Simonon77 said:

I  have a portable ( large one ) and find it fine for cooling a room. It only really needs to run for 15 - 20 minutes to get it nice and chilly. Wall mounted ones are nice, but to be honest how many days do we need to use them in the UK ?  Paying £5K for something you use 2 weeks a year is pretty expensive.

What about the rest of the year you can use them to heat the room?

They aren't particularly efficient for doing that though as they are electric. Gas central heating is much better. 

Depends on the unit efficiency and what you pay for gas and electricity.

I charge up my home battery at 7.5 p/kWh over night, and my air con units provide heating during the winter at a minimum efficiency of 320%. So even allowing for battery efficiencies this costs me 2.6 p/kWh of delivered heat. The efficiency of the air con units also increases as it gets warmer outside, so costs me even less during the spring and autumn months. My gas heating system at around 90% efficiency costs me 8.9 p/kWh of delivered heat, with no noticeable change in efficiency during the year.

Even with electricity at 30 p/kWh it's probably very similar prices to gas heating in winter, with a slight reduction in running costs in spring/autumn due to increased efficiencies.

Apart from running costs, the major advantage of the air con units is that I can very easily run just the unit in my office during the day, rather than having the whole house heating on. I also don't need to wait for the radiators to get warm, I just turn it on when I walk in and within 5 minutes it's nice and warm (or cool!). When the room has reached the right temperature, I'm also not having the remaining heat from the pipework/radiator continuing to pump out heat, which is just a waste.

goled

john.h said:

Simonon77 said:

I  have a portable ( large one ) and find it fine for cooling a room. It only really needs to run for 15 - 20 minutes to get it nice and chilly. Wall mounted ones are nice, but to be honest how many days do we need to use them in the UK ?  Paying £5K for something you use 2 weeks a year is pretty expensive.

What about the rest of the year you can use them to heat the room?

This is a problem I faced. The portable ACs only provide cooling and not heating. So if you're buying a portable AC for a hot spot, you might also need to buy a space heater for the same room. The only way out I found was to install a mini-split. It is more expensive but very convenient.

outdoors_656

Some portable AC's units do in fact provide heating as well as cooling.

A fixed wall mounted air conditioning unit would always be the better option, as with the portable ac units you need to have a window open to vent the hose out of. Not ideal in the winter when you're using the unit for heating, and you can't seal all gaps, and draughts get in.

Some portable AC's units do in fact provide heating as well as cooling.

A fixed wall mounted air conditioning unit would always be the better option, as with the portable ac units you need to have a window open to vent the hose out of. Not ideal in the winter when you're using the unit for heating, and you can't seal all gaps, and draughts get in.

grumpy_codger

Simonon77 said:

john.h said:

Simonon77 said:

I  have a portable ( large one ) and find it fine for cooling a room. It only really needs to run for 15 - 20 minutes to get it nice and chilly. Wall mounted ones are nice, but to be honest how many days do we need to use them in the UK ?  Paying £5K for something you use 2 weeks a year is pretty expensive.

What about the rest of the year you can use them to heat the room?

They aren't particularly efficient for doing that though as they are electric. Gas central heating is much better. 

They are electric, but so are heat pumps. Aircon is a heat pump. It's more expensive, but not that much.