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.
The same seems to apply for old music as well - only the “good stuff” survives and everything else is forgotten
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.
Pretty sure all of my old apartments had the shitty window units, none of them ever worked.
It’s true with most appliances.
The problem is it is difficult to know today which appliances will still be functioning in 20 years.
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Even better, they now sell window units that drape over the sill on both sides for less noise, less blocking the window, no danger of falling, window closes farther
You forgot about the part where it is 70% asbestos and radioactive coolant. 10/10 best ACs ever.
Coolant made of uranium? Where to stuff asbestos in a AC?
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That old, toxic refrigerant just hit different
The new stuff just doesn’t taste the same.
You can do a 1:1 swap of refrigerant, and if I remember correctly, the new stuff actually works better.
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.
Didn’t know that, I was thinking of the CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) we used like 30/40 years ago
The reason those took off so well is cause Freon, while awful for ozone, is significantly safer than the previous usage of ammonia.
Refrigerators and air conditioners just compress a gas into a liquid, moves it through piping, and then decompresses the gas. When compressing the gas (a refrigerant), it’ll want to turn liquid, but has to burn off heaps of excess energy, done as heat energy. That’s done in the part of an AC unit that hangs outside. The liquid is then pumped to the other side of the machine, relieved of pressure, and sent through tons of piping with heat grates and fans for dissipating the cold air it generates. When evaporating from liquid to gas it needs to take in heaps of energy, so it’ll draw heat from the air, cooling it. The gas is pumped back to the compressor on the other side of the unit to repeat the process over and over. Propane is really good at being compressed like that, and it has minimal effect on global warming, so it can be used as a freon alternative. Just yanno, don’t use it in your car’s AC.
My man just casually explained the refrigerator cycle, well done
Deffo gotta thank Technology Connections on YouTube for making it so simple to understand.
Yeah, that’s how I learned it too, but its funny how he has 4 40min videos about it, or things that use it
Dope thank you!
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.
For real, mini splits are insanely powerful. They’ll make a room frigidly too cold in nanoseconds if you ask them to.
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.
But the first needs at least two power lines to work.
CoP of negative 10.
*220V
German here, I don’t get that joke. What the fuck’s an Air Conditioner? Some time of specail air you put in your hair after using shampoo?
Yeah, it’s for when your air is too flat and frizzy.
@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… 😅jesus christ, germans know what air conditioning is
@JudahBenHur Yeah, by the time I realized it might have been sarcasm, the toot was sent and I was already doing something else… 😅
Oh, well, somebody’s gotto be the idiot sometimes, might as well be me… 😅😂
in middle school I raised my hand and asked why the evaporation from the oceans didnt rain down into freshwater lakes and make them salt water also and I think about that about twice or three times a year, I’m in my 40s
But that’s a very good question for a child?
Right? I can think of far more embarrassing things I’ve asked as a child.
I was like 13 ;_;
In elementary school I once asked how chicken eggs get fertilized if their shell is hard (we’d just learned about salmon spawning)…the look my teacher gave me still lives rent free in my head.
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Dehumidify
To add to this, reverse cycle (aka heat pump) air conditioners will dehumidify the air during cooling operation as humidity in the air tends to condense on the (cold) indoor unit coil and leaves via the drain pipe.
These air conditioner units usually have the modes; cool, heat, fan only & dehumidify, which is why they arent just called ‘air coolers’ or ‘heaters’.Doesn’t work on your mom though, still wet
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
Not sure if this is the correct word for it (really bad at German) but I think the word for it is Klimaanlage.
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pathetic thing that looks like WALL-E’s girlfriend attached to a clothes drier vent. If you get five feet away from it you’re dying
Thank you so much for that link! It was wildly pertinent to my life
I just moved into a new place this weekend. It has an addition not connected to central A/C. Instead, it has a little window unit, but also a (one hose) portable unit.
I was using the portable one, because I haven’t had time to block the hole that runs outside (especially from critters climbing through). So I hoped that the air blowing out would discourage anything from climbing in
And now I will be taking the time to properly block the hole where the duct runs, because I immediately switched back to the window unit after watching that video
So thank you again! It’s the first time I ever encountered a portable unit, so I knew nothing. And coincidentally, I just moved and had the option to use either the window unit or the portable
Just ridiculously relevant to my life as of this weekend! And ya just saved me money on electricity. You’re awesome for that link my friend
I hoped that was a Technology Connections link, and I was not disappointed.
Some significant amount of the heat that should go outside, instead gets put back into the room through the “clothes dryer vent”.
Given the cost premium, and space used, by floor standing ACs, they’re really not worth it if you have an option.
I covered mine with a mylar emergency blanket and it’s dropped the temp quite a bit. Not perfect, but it works in Texas
Every time I’ve gone to move to a new place, central air has been my top priority. I refused to consider homes that relied on window units, swamp coolers, or those floor units that are basically a scam.
I live somewhere with cold winters and hot summers though, maybe I would feel different somewhere with more mild seasons.
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My old AC works great. I just wish I could hear other things while it’s running.
We missed out on the freon black market that’s consumed by cyborg men in vans.
I understood this reference.
With the high average age and tech fetish inclination of this userbase, I figure there are several folks that have read Snow Crash more than once.
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.
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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.
I thought it was just that it was too difficult to fit all the parts efficiently in such a small box
When Tesla first publicized 3d printing the “octovalve” as a piece to complex to manufacture traditionally, the claim was that it made the heat pump much more compact. There was even a rumor going around that they might use it to enter the home heat pump market. Their work in making heat pumps compact enough for cars could really make a difference, however I image home stuff is much more price sensitive
Mini-splits do exist in window-mountable form, although they haven’t really caught on (yet). Technology Connections covers alternatives like that at the end of his portable ac episode https://youtu.be/_-mBeYC2KGc
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Uhh, old style is heat pump too. Unlesz you are referring water evaporation.
The difficulty (just looking at the refrigerant) is the huge differences in pressure needed between refrigerants.
Then you have to look at the compatibility of the compressor motor oils and the refrigerant.
One example
60 PSI to 85 PSI for R-22 and 105 PSI to 143 PSI for R-410A
Others:
Makes sense. Very different tolerances and tooling required
Planned Obsolesce!
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.
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Or you could replace only compressor
but at least it can connect to wifi
And then won’t work if the Wi-Fi is down
everyone needs to take a break from time to time
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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.
Right so people bought cheap and now are upset that it doesn’t do the work.
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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.
Ozon?
Mold and mildew.
Legionella
