Anyone installed air conditioning?

[Winningatpatriachychicken]

We have two loft bedrooms which are going to need a solution now the weather warms up. Fans and open windows won't cut it as we live near a busy road so noise is an issue.

Roughly how much does it cost? Any good recommendations for portable systems? Do all the portable units need venting or can you get some where you just change the water, like a dehumidifier?

Thanks for any advice!

You can get ones where you use an ice block and it sort of passes the air across the ice block but tbh they are not great - the vast majority need venting. What about ceiling fans? I have those and they can be very effective- the two blade modern ones in particular.

Thank you @LaPalmaLlama - my concern with celling fans is they just move hot air around?

My parents have it. I don’t know how much it costs as my dad installed it himself, but it’s worlds away from units and fans. It’s so quiet and you forget it’s on until you leave and get blasted with heat.

I just have a unit for our bedroom and I still wouldn’t be without it though. I put it on at about 9pm and then turn it off when we go to bed and it’ll stay cool for the night. It is very loud though and the pipe does need to go out the window.

I have One of these for an attic room and it works really well at cooling down the room. It does need venting though so may not be a runner for you noise-wise. It makes a low white noise hum when in use which may mask some of the outside noise however.

We have wall mounted aircon units in several rooms. They have exterior wall mounted units (to keep them above any puddles and mushy leaves) situated at the side of the house in dead space. They are really quiet and amazingly efficient - the brand is Daikin. Had it about 10 years and is the best thing in terms of being able to sleep! Shop around as we had quotes ranging from £500 to £5000 for supply and installation.

We had the plasterboard from the ceilings removed, the rockwool insulation behind it replaced with Kingspan and then the ceilings re-plasterboarded - fans in the summer just didn't help that much - it's a 60's chalet style house - all slanting roofs upstairs - it was freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer - all down to lack of good insulation: insulating the roof properly transformed our house for the better. Air conditioner can become noisy and of course electricity running costs are always something to think about - electricity is extremely expensive. A neighbour across the road had recently gone for a huge air conditioning unit on the outside of her house and not bothered to insulate the roof after having a lot of work done - it will be interesting to see how that works out - I think it's a mistake made because it is a lot less hassle and mess to simply fix a big box to the outside of the house then to have the upstairs ceilings reinsulated.

You need to stop the heat coming in, how well insulated are the roof and walls? What type of glass and glazing do you have in windows and rooflights? Do you have solar film?

Air conditioning is not sustainable and only contributes to climate change. It is probably too late for you to take these physical steps, but for any others who have yet to build a loft conversion, maximising the insulation and using glazing to prevent solar gain can massively reduce heat issues.

We had aircon installed to most of the house 3 years ago, and paid £6k. We have a single external unit (which meant we didn't need planning permission; we live in a conservation area). Previously we had a single stand alone unit. It was effective, but noisy, and it did need venting - air con that works always needs venting. The full fit has been a game changer for us; it's quiet (you couldn't be in a Zoom meeting with the previous unit running) and effective.

We have a built in unit in our bedroom.

We live in a new build and even in winter on the coldest nights it's never dropped below 16!

The whole unit (Bosch ac and Mitsubishi box outside) and install cost just over 2.5k when it was installed 3 years ago. This has heating, fan and ac option. This is great for us as I always have a fan on and windows open as i run hot 24/7.

I was worried about the running costs but it's A+ rated and is comparable with the cost of running a fan we soon found out after getting our first bill in.

Thanks everyone this is really useful.

The insulation is pretty good I think as the conversion is recent, but if we have any hot summers then the rooms will not be comfortable for sleeping with the windows closed. And it really is too nosy to open them. That's the trade off with this house - would have been 150k more further away from the road!

Thanks for the lecture…

We have Mini-splits and I love them. Had them installed as part of a renovation, so can't give you an exact quote, but they've been really life changing. We have a single outside unit that barely takes up any space. They're very quiet and we always have them on energy efficient so they're not just blasting cold air full time.

We've done it 3 times. It depends on the number and type of unit and the distance of the external unit to the room it's cooling as to how much it costs. Our previous units were LG and our current ones are Mitsubishi. Get a specialist Aircon place to survey and quote for you.

As for the climate warrior comments:

• the units usually heat as well as cool (air source heat pumps) so in winter rooms can be warmed using this method instead of central heating which is cheaper and more efficient (in fact air con units used to attract a lower rate of VAT as they were environmentally friendly in that regard - not sure if that's still the case)
• The top floor of our house (not a loft conversion, just one with rooms that go to the roof) was literally unusable in the summer of 2022 (London) with external temperatures reaching over 40 in the shade and the kids bedrooms being 35 deg at 11pm - before we fitted the aircon. It's in a conservation area so whilst we have the best insulation in the roof the fabric of the building cannot accommodate much discreet retrofitting and as we are a conservation area we cannot change the original windows (the external units are hidden in light well recesses below ground level to stop them from looking out of keeping)
• (This does not apply to my family but) being too hot can kill people, especially the very old, young and vulnerable. It's actually much easier to use clothing and blankets as a mean to keep safely warm in winter than it is to keep cool effectively in summer. Climate change is already upon us and unless we permit people to air condition their homes (at the least the bedroom) we will see more deaths from heat than we do from cold.
• 'Keeping the heat out' can only do so much. Read about how modern 'sealed' houses fared during the heatwave of 2022. They are slower to heat up but as time goes on over multiple hot days they heat up and don't cool down.
• I do think external solar shutters (very common on the continent) should become the norm on all windows. That would make a great deal of difference at relatively little cost.

@whoateallthecookies i understand this is an old post but if you read by any chance which company installed your ac please thanks

It might be worth looking at the company below if you are in the United Kingdom as they supply and carry out air conditioning installations.

https://airconditioninginstallations.co/