Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Jan 16, 2014 8:31 pm Been noticing a couple of Air Conditioning mechanics appearing around our new estate these past few days - Daikin and Mitsubishi noticed.... can see why and sympathise...with temps like this!! Really impressed these past few days with our ducted Actron Airconditioning/heating system. It has been cooling the house wonderfully well despite the extremes of temp...43.7 outside today and a comfy 22.7 inside. .....Yesterday a similar 43 outside and Monday was 41.8....looking forward to the weekend, only going to be mid 30's. Our previous home had evaporative cooling -on days like this the best it would do cool to about about 30 deg inside. These past 18 months in our new house have been really happy with the system. Previous home had electric floor heating (no natural gas here so ducted heating was never an option) for winter. We worked out we are spending approx 40% less on heating and cooling bills....can't complain about that. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 2Jan 16, 2014 9:06 pm A friend's husband is a refrigeration mechanic. The biggest two issues they find with air cond not working properly are a) dirty filters and b) temperature set below 22º - this can cause the system to freeze and then it's out of action for a few hours until it thaws out again. I cleaned the filters in the unit here in our rental on Sunday in preparation for the heat and it's been faultless so far. ~ Anne I used to be indecisive but now I'm not quite sure. Eeek - We're embarking on a knockdown rebuild! Click here for our build thread Our blog: kdrhome.wordpress.com Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 3Jan 16, 2014 9:25 pm To have under 23 degrees on a day like this is awesome. How big is your aircond and how big is the cooling area. I am sure there are plenty of people out there that r experiencing problems with aircond. Some maybe overheating and turning off. I suprised there isnt more talk of it online. Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 4Jan 16, 2014 9:58 pm my Fujitsu air con has been working for three days without missing a beat so far(hope i don't jinx it).forgot to clean filter, must check this. Another thing is I don't run it on full fan and lowest setting, have it ranging from 21 to 24 C.mostly on 24. I'm just upset that i took this week of and i haven't been able to get out of the house with the kids! this Unit is 5.5 years old. mixo Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 5Jan 17, 2014 9:40 am evap a/c here (Melb). It's been running 26-27 inside, 41-42 outside. We are pretty diligent on making sure the windows are set right using 'the tissue test' (i.e. hold a tissue up at window, if it sticks to the flyscreen then air is going the right direction.. out!). Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 6Jan 17, 2014 4:27 pm Hi BSTAR We have the Actron ESP+ ... its the SRD 230c unit - our house is 35 squares of living all up It's fitted with 17 ceiling vents to 8 zones with 2 controllers (one in main family/lounge/kitchen area and the other in our Master Bedroom) We set the unit's controller on average to 23.5 degrees (winter and summer) and the fan generally to low....that's all it seems to need. We have a separate thermometer in the main room and it's been showing 22.7 these past few days in the 40's. We don't waste power and money running it in all the rooms, as many we aren't using throughout the day. Those rooms get turned off or on as we need them. And at night we switch to our bedroom controller to run just the bedrooms. Yes, we also regularly clean the filters, as others have mentioned - it does keep it running efficiently. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 8Jan 27, 2014 7:10 am How much power does it use per hour or per day? Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 9Jan 27, 2014 11:23 am Hi St George, Refridgerated airconds arent cheap to run. The way to work it out is to get the size of unit in Kwatts and divide by 3. You then multiply this by the price per kwatt. so for a 15kwatt unit it will cost (15/3) X 0.25 = $1.25 per hour to run (if its running full time) In order for you to save power you need to zone the system and dont overd imension it or under dimension. Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 10Jan 27, 2014 1:51 pm B STAR Hi St George, Refridgerated airconds arent cheap to run. The way to work it out is to get the size of unit in Kwatts and divide by 3. You then multiply this by the price per kwatt. so for a 15kwatt unit it will cost (15/3) X 0.25 = $1.25 per hour to run (if its running full time) In order for you to save power you need to zone the system and dont overd imension it or under dimension. The factor of 3 will vary depending on the type and efficiency of the unit being used, smaller split systems have EER of over 5.7, which for a 2kw system means only 350w of input power. To answer the OP's question, I have found mine to be coping well (5 days over 40 in Adelaide) provided I don't allow the house to heat up too much before turning it on. I aim to have it come on when it is over 36 outside. It seems once you reach that heat saturation point the aircon just cant seem to bring it back down until well into the night. It would depend on your insulation levels, glazing, shading etc I would imagine. Especially with the nights hovering in the low 30's. One of the only pitfalls of thermal mass I suppose! Compared to when I built the house 11 years ago, several improvements have made the aircon much more effective. External shading of windows (with shutters and a pergola), blockout curtains, draught proofing, better ceiling insulation and whirlys have transformed a system that used to struggle even at 35 degrees to now being able to cope with 40 plus no probs. Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 11Jan 27, 2014 2:50 pm Hey Bayview, which aircond can achieve a EER of 5.7 that excellent and must admitt I thought was impossible. Bty the factor in my calculations was an approximation like everything else. There are too many variables wrt to airconditioning effeciency. Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 13Jan 29, 2014 6:08 am delatite13 Hi BSTAR We have the Actron ESP+ ... its the SRD 230c Delatite13, what do your Elec bills look like out of curiosity? Slooowwwwly getting a Manhatten 35 in Middleton Grange Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 15Jan 29, 2014 10:46 am Overall we don't think they're too bad. Compared to the last house which had slab heating and evaporative cooling we had a huge spike in winter. The winter 7-8 mth bill there was about $1600 per qtr and summer 4 mth was about $450 per qtr mark. The total was about the $4100 for the year. The winter was so much more expensive due to the fact you just cannot turn slab heating on and off. And we have a pretty long winter here. Slab heating was generally on from the end of April into October, Even though some days yu really didn't want it on. This house is approx 6 squares larger in living and the bill curve is much flatter and more even. We would average about $900 a quarter. Stay seated. This is a huge improvement over the last house. The main reason being that while the actual cost is only around $500 less, you have to take into account that the Kw cost of power went up some 28% from the last house. So equating it to the last house our bill would be in the range of about $2500, so we are saving about $1600 in power costs to run a house 6 squares bigger than before. I cannot separate the actual aircon cost, but suffice to say from the last place, this house is hugely more efficient being about 40% more efficient than having slab heating and evaporative cooling. Of course LED lighting, CFL,s also contribute. All our other appliances were with us in the last house. As we have said, the ducted air is far more flexible than slab heating, and massively cheaper to run. As opposed to evaporative it is more expensive, but given the degrees in comfort level between the 2 the cost difference is not that great. The amount sounds heaps but when you take into account how many TV's, fridges, freezers etc we have (ridiculous amounts I must admit) it's manageable. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 17Jan 29, 2014 11:11 am You guys are lucky. I live in Singapore and we only have two bedroom aircons on every night and my MONTHLY bill is 650 to 750. I am also getting Actron ESP Ultima 2 x 17kw, eye watering cost but I think the end result will be worth it. Re: How's your air conditioning coping in the heat? 19Jan 29, 2014 1:00 pm Would love solar, it just comes down to the dollars in the initial cost. Settlement 1/2/12 New Shed 23/3/12 Slab poured 27/3/12 Frame complete 4/5/12 Roof complete 1/6/12 LOCKUP 29/6/12 Our new build blog http://kareenhillsownerbuild.blogspot.com/ Anybody know any good and reasonably priced Air conditioning contractors/companies that could install a ducted air conditioning system in the Central Coast NSW for a small… 0 8996 There may be answers here but can't find anything. I have a closed in veranda, four windows. North facing, just had sunblock blinds installed. A bit cooler (actually… 0 2983 How do you remove one of these ceiling air con vents? And is it possible to disconnect the duct joined to the vent from inside the house, without going into the roof cavity? 0 5948 |