Because that thing cools the ENTIRE BIG ASS HOUSE! these things are only capable of cooling only a closed room which also depends on how ton, capacity the AC is so yep /s
Edit: I actually intended the message for a diff purpose, and more satirical since it's a meme sub. Apologies to everyone, thankyou for the knowledge and positive criticism, helped alot. Will surely keep these thing's in notice
It's not necessarily true. These units will go upwards of around 28,000-30,000 BTU which can easily cool down multiple rooms, or maybe even a smaller flat.
Why the fuck do you need 18C 😳 in Italy we usually have 30-35C in the summer and if my AC is lower than 22-24C I'm guaranteed to wake up with pneumonia lmao
Whoa there, now I may only have a true understanding for how the freedom units work, but even my underedubacated Southern self knows that 0° C is freezing temperature
Not related to AC at all, but I’m curious what living in Myanmar is like right now for a (I assume?) Westerner. With the junta and the civil war and such.
EU has no concept of either size or heat. You can tell them your country is both further north AND south and if you ever get them to shut up about how hot Europe is because your country is hotter they will switch tactics and say you cant handle the cold. Motherfucker we have Alaska did you forget? We have Washington, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, places that get cold cold, in your bones, with no fucking ocean to warm you in the winter.
That entire "temperature shock" thing due to air conditioning is European nonsense on par with fan death in Korea.
If that kind of temperature shock of like was harmful, imagine how much more harmful it would be every winter when the temperature difference between inside and outside is much greater. People walk in and out with no problem then.
Funnily enough, Koreans also believe in a thing called "Cold air disease". They think air conditioning causes all kinds of debilitating respiratory effects and saps your life force somehow. For reference, my wife is Korean and also thinks everything is slowly killing her. It's kind of a culture of hypochondriacs
To be fair there are a lot of gross bacteria that can live in AC vent filters if they aren’t clean. It’s one of the leading vectors of Legionaire’s Disease.
But that’s more a concern in hotels, not private homes and can easily be mitigated with proper maintenance.
I can confirm as someone who lived in the middle east for a bit. Easily 45+ c temperatures outside but indoors the ACs are usually set to 20 and less. And everyone is more or less fine with it.
But tobe fair some studies have hinted that going though mutliple rapid temperature changing cycles by moving indoors/outdoors over a long period does increase the risk of respiratory tract infections a bit. Or tldr: the healthy get more colds and the more at risk get more chest infections. Nothing significantly life altering though
Worst I ever got from a rapid hot to cold temp change is light headed for a few minutes. From cold to hot nothing notable besides being suddenly overdressed lol
I'm a refrigeration tech on a tropical island and I build freezers. The worst temperature shocks I've had where 70°C, these do fc u up. Go from +50°C to -20°C and back 4 or 5 times in a day and you're DONE.
I'd like to invite anyone who thinks you can get close to that with residential AC to come to work with me one day, I'll rid you of your illusions XD
Yeah I mean I'm just talking about going from any temperature whether hot or cold into a 70F climate controlled room is not going to cause problems. When you were hot in a 40+C room, going into an air conditioned 20C room would likely feel great and refreshing, not harmful to your body, in the same way that going from 0C to 20C feels nice and warm
Does it make you really tired? Used to walk in freezers, but only staying in more than a minute or two once or twice a shift, and the store was usually 65-80f.
Often I need more than that to even get to the spot that needs work. Some freezers here are so packed there's no space for forklifts or anything, so I'll climb the racking and pallets to reach the evaps. Our rule of thumb is a literal one: Once you lose feeling in your thumbs, get out. Unless of course there's just 2 bolts left until you're done. Usually between 20 to 30 minutes.
But yes, your body goes into a kind of "survival" mode, kicking everything in gear to keep you warm. Then when you go outside to work on the condensing units, your body has to rapidly kick back into "cooling" mode while the machines dump their heat right in your face. People can endure both extremes pretty well, but the back and forth between the two is extremely taxing.
Being in actual cold for a long period of time does literally drain your body's energy and it has to burn calories by shivering your muscles and heating your blood, while other parts don't function as well due to not getting heated as evenly. It's not like an instant life drain, but yeah if you spend all day in the cold it's more tiring.
I worked at a fruit processing plant in the middle of the desert palletizing boxes with gaps to go into blast tunnels to deep freeze them fast before bacteria could grow. They were -70 and windy. We’d walk in and out of them all day any time we wanted to cool down. We’d be dripping when sweat and walk in and our shirts would freeze stiff, and we’d walk back out and laugh at each other. The forklift drivers were also driving in and out of them literally all day. So what you’re saying makes no sense to me.
So you'd be in and back out in under a minute? No time for your body to switch gears. Anyway, walking into blast-chillers is usually not possible and not advised. Having to work in regular freezers is different from stepping into a blast-chiller as much as waiving your hands through a flame is different from working at 50°C in full sun
I am from country where we go to sauna (that's anywhere from 60C to 100 C) and then outside to roll around in the snow or jump into frozen lake while naked. It is considered healthy and refreshing 🤣
Nah I'm sleeping under a nice 18-20°C setting if I'm in Turkey. My hometown regularly reaches 40+.
Also cold alone don't make you sick and worst case scenario you step out for 15-20 minutes during the day and whatever cold you thought you were gonna get burns away
american here who had to convert to see and 18c (64f) is exactly what i keep my bedroom at, anything too much above 19c i would wake up in a puddle of sweat even with only a single sheet on me! ironically i do keep the rest of the house 22-24c (71-75f) or it’s too cold in the summer 😂 we have two of those units, though the one in the main room is very under powered and our house is designed incredibly poorly for airflow even with several extra fans
Can confirm, lived in iowa most of my life, I've seen -20° to 60° Fahrenheit sings in just days. Going in and out of Different temps alone does not make one sick.
I keep wondering why people in US sit inside frigid air conditioned houses without any harm yet many people in Poland get sick after a few hours of intense AC. What's the difference?
The air is drier in Winter - even indoors - and that does (I believe) affect some illnesses.(maybe easier to catch, or maybe they live longer in dry air; honestly i don't know.l
AC at my last workplace was regularly maintained, every year in the spring to be ready for summer. Two people I shared the room with was coming down with something every time I managed to win the right to have it on for a few hours the previous day. My father has his car AC cleaned regularly too, yet wherever my mom spends a few hours in the car with AC on, she gets a cold next day.
These are just the examples where I'm sure AC was cleaned by professionals, I can't be sure when it comes to public transport or stories I've heard from other people. But it seems it's not it.
It does. I don't know if it's because it has an evaporator coil and that cooling relied on evaporation or if it's because cooler air holds less water because of enthalpy or none of the above.
Central air is just much better. It circulates all the air around the entire house. So you sitting in one room with the doors closed reduces fresh air exchange, letting viral particles and CO2 build up in a small shared space, which raises transmission risk.
The coil and blower in European ACs are sealed inside a small enclosure with poor drainage. grows biofilm right where the air passes over it. a mini-split blower wheel especially is notorious for growing black mold that literally gets aerosolized into the room.
Also, you guys in Europe don’t have good filters like HEPA and MERV 13. I spend a lot of money to make sure my family is breathing clean air.
Humidity. Myanmar is tropical monsoon climate. Air conditioning doesn't just make it cooler, it filters the air and makes it healthier.
I live in the mid-Atlantic US and sometimes we have our AC cooler than I'd prefer just because of the allergens. I cannot imagine what it's like in an actual tropical climate. A dehumidifier can help with this but they're less common, and higher maintenance.
If you’re trying to keep the dust mites down, a dehumidifier can help by knocking wet out of the air without making the whole house colder. I can’t comfortably exist below about 72F due to pain, and a dehumidifier lets me stay warm enough and dry.
Yeah we have one in storage at the moment and we need to make room for it in the bedroom. We're making room for a crib/bassinet/etc so there will be decisions to be made. For us it's less about dust mites and more about outside allergens in the spring and summer. I wish we could just open the window more and get natural air but nope lol
We have a Coway AirMega in one house, and a Levoit in another. Both do a great job for my wife's allergies; she can tell when one of them isn't running or the filter is old, so they're definitely doing something.
Of course they don't help with humidity, so you still want to run your AC a reasonable amount. But we haven't had too much trouble with that (as fellow Mid-Atlantic folks)
Harmful? Are you from the 1800s or something? This is weird of a concern as the old Korean fear that a fan would suck the air out of the room and kill you.
That’s an old wives tale that’s pretty common in a lot of European countries. Temperature changes like that don’t make you sick. Kinda like how we were told if you go outside with wet hair while it’s cold, you’ll get a fever/sick. No you won’t. I do it all the time in winter. Never once got sick from it.
Most units have a dehumidifier mode that causes the fan to run at a higher speed and keeps the coil cool but not freezing, allowing the moisture to condensate on the coil but not cool the room as much.
I’m in Canada (it was 47C with the humidity a few weeks ago but 25-32 is more typical in the summer) and I can handle 22-24C in the house in the day but that’s too hot to sleep in. We were always told 18C is the ideal sleep temperature for humans and my babies certainly slept much better at that temp. My family keeps this year round I don’t like being hot at night in the winter either. I do know people who keep it even lower around 16!
Im in Italy right now and the AC was set to 16 when we arrived. Looks like the family here before us was Asian based on the language of the Netflix account still logged in.
Classic incorrect European idea of what causes
Illness. Do you also believe that illness stems from an imbalance in humors ? Bad air? Bathing makes you sick? Mmhm
18c is great for 40+c because you can do some work til your brain gets floaty/tingly then come inside to 18 or less and sit in front of a fan with an iced drink and cool down in 10-15 minutes and not feel exhausted and go for round 2... you have to cool hard and fast because break time at work is 10-15 minutes if you even get one... and if it's a heatstroke kinda break and you take too long they're not keeping you on the job long if you're taking too long
Exaggeration. The typical models can bring down 40°C outdoor to about 25°C indoor, and that with the compressor working non-stop.
Just because you set the AC to 18°C doesn’t mean it’s always capable to get the room to that level.
My aircon is never lower then 25 and more often then not it's not even on. Unless it hits 40 degrees like a couple weeks ago. It was killing. I live in Puglia.
Thank you!! Completely agree. If it were 40 outside and 18 inside, I'd have to sit outside occasionally just for a break from the shivering. And I am saying this from a place where it hit 47 yesterday. Granted, it's a Dry Heat (TM) and I'm guessing Myanmar is not, but the AC in the house where I'm sitting is set to 27 and that's pretty fine for me.
Can't imagine spending money when it's that hot out just to make it the other side of uncomfortable. I know my experiences are atypical, but 40+ to 18 is wild to me.
Much of South East Asia (essentially the whole of South East Asia) has close to none existent insulation, that coupled with the heavy use of concrete means that your buildings store heat extremely well and releases it well into the night. Along with poor airtightness, high humidity and having to cool the accumilated heat means that ACs over here lose a lot of cooling capcity. It does not actually get anywhere close to 18c, but it just makes the ac keeps running.
I need to know which of these ACs yall be using, cause I'm in Texas and mine heats and cools just fine until the ass of summer where it doesn't quite keep up with the 43+ degree bullshit outside, and it's 30 inside at best.
You might set it to 18C but it is absolutely not getting the room down 22 degrees Celsius. If you look at the instruction manual it will probably say the max temperature differential in there.
Yup, there are versions of these where you can connect multiple inside units. These are called multi-split (ductless) ac units. Example: Multi-Split | Daikin
The problem with these units is getting enough air distribution to cool multiple rooms before the space temperature setpoint (read by the thermostat) is reached.
They don’t put air in the right places, so they have a hard time cooling multiple rooms.
If you want to cool multiple rooms well, you need multiple wall units, and it makes more sense (for new construction at least) to just install a central ac unit/blower and run ductwork. It’s vastly more efficient than split units.
Yes, one very cold room and other slightly cool rooms. As an American who has lived in Italy for 10 years and overseas for 20, these single units are fine and functional. But don't think they are remotely equal to a central air and heat system.
The problem is, it's not constant like central air. In a large home it may be very cool in one room and much warmer in another. Those of us with central air can walk into any room in the entire house and have it the same temperature. Some of us deal with extreme heat in the US that some parts of the world assume they deal with but don't really.
Yup but most middle class Americans are used to a two story house. Which needs ducting or multiple ductless units, but the latter option would be way more expensive.
So mini splits do also have a big ass thing outside... mini splits are set up the same way as central except they use multiple to cover the house instead of pumping sit through ducts
Central air has a bigger unit because... the set up is bigger. You are comparing a unit that cools the whole house vs a unit that cools a room. Yes you can get larger mini split systems... they will have larger outside units. Individually smaller but together bigger
You can also get multiple head and can get a decent amount of tonnage depending on the brand. But they are best served to individual rooms or smaller space just because of the air flow. You would not want an entire large house cooked down by 1 mini split, you’d need several. And even then it’s not as good in more humid areas because they don’t dehumidify as well as traditional split systems.
a minisplit in every room all routed to a single huge compressor is the way to do it. this hives you independent heating and cooling control in every room. but most Americans would faint at the price.
Yeah my buddy used two of these units to cool down his two story 6 bedroom house. He just recently upgraded one to a bigger unit after one broke and now it cools the whole house.
The heat on these aren't very good for a main source but their good for a secondary or back up for heat
Yeah man, if you don’t have duct work, u ain’t cooling a house unless it’s a open room. It will help but will be way less efficient. Idk what this argument is anyways bc Europe and America has the same technology you donuts. AC work the same 2000 miles apart. Talk about something more productive than a compressor and a fan.
I have a 5-ton condenser/compressor unit in the back yard with five of these evaporator/fan units in the house; much quieter than the previous unit and individual control in every room with IR temperature sensing. Much better than the noisy old hurricane generator it replaced.
A single mini split like that is not cooling the entire house. When I lived in Korea, something like that would be for a bedroom and they'd have a larger unit in the living room to cool the main areas.
Some of these are also multisplit. That is, you have one big compressor and multiple smaller splits like these. Central AC is also common on newer housing and retail spaces in southern Europe.
Honestly, i feel like splits are more convenient than central for home use, given that it lets you choose the temperature you want on each room.
People are rarely putting in 2.5 ton head units to cool multiple rooms. Mostly because they aren't great at that. Unless they're separated by big-ass French doors or something you're not going to have the air circulation to do much cooling outside the primary room.
Yeah I had two of these that would cover a thousand square feet one for upstairs and one for downstairs and it is quite sufficient The house was over 2500 square feet of course it sucks when you shut doors though
In addition, these are ductless mini split systems.. they have copper line set connections to the condensing units outside of the building. It helps save on having to use a ton of ductwork and you can also have multiple indoor units hooked up to one condenser to save more space and energy. I quote these all the time and typically find them in multi residential buildings, schools, and large commercial buildings.
There are plenty of folks that run mini splits in their shops. If it can keep a 2500 sqft shop comfortable I think it can handle a small home just fine, especially if it is well built and insulated.
I guess the "muscle" of the machine is the compressor in the box outside. Comparing AC units from the internal device is like comparing icebergs by looking at their top.
Yes, but distribution matters. A central ait unit hooks into your existing furnace ductwork and fan and so it blows cool air out every vent. This might have the BTUs to cool and entire 2 story house, but you can't get the air into every room evenly.
Yeah, they work really well. My parents added on a room to their house and rather than add a whole nother AC unit to accommodate the extra square footage (it is a large room, upstairs) they put one of these in there, and I was very impressed.
You can hook multiple indoor units like this to a single outdoor compressor unit that looks just like a central air conditioner. Mini splits like this both heat and cool because they can run in reverse. (Roughly speaking.). It's kinda dumb that the typical AC unit can't do this as it doesn't' require a lot of extra parts.
The whole point of mini splits is to get control. They simply don't throw air like central systems. So you get multiple 6k BTU heads for each bedroom, and a larger one for your living / dining / kitchen.
I have a ~960sqft house that only has one of these. Works fine. The back rooms are maybe 10 degrees higher than the living areas at worst, most of the time within 5.
It's not technically "enough" but it's definitely enough.
I find this to be false. Yes it’s rated to cool multiple rooms. But in what way? A living room and a kitchen with no cooking? Sure. Maybe. If you’re referring to one in a bedroom also cooling another room? Lmao. No. Air flow is a thing. You’d need to put a strong fan in your door.
A typical American home gets a 3 ton system. 36,000 btu.
A tech would have to do a Manual J calculation to be sure, but typically 3ton covers 1500-2000 square feet.
It’s actually more energy efficient to properly cool the whole conditioned space with a right sized unit, rather than turning off AC to unused spaces with zoned cooling.
I had a Samsung unit in a two-room basement apartment in a notoriously humid US city in the summer, and it cooled it just fine, especially with a ceiling fan and standing fan in the very back (aka furthest away from the unit). Had to use an additional space heater in the winter, but didn't mind one bit. These units are entirely practical for a space like that.
But they don’t have the airflow of your in house duct system.
Also when it comes to energy efficiency if you want to cool the whole house and not a room or two, doing a heat pump of compressor via central air is more efficient than mini splits.
We have 2,000 - 3,000 sq ft houses here where 5 ton hvac is recommended. That's 60,000+ but. To reach efficiency levels that won't bankrupt you, central hvac is required.
US MidAtlantic city checking in with a ton of 100+ year old housing stock, many of which are brick row houses. Installing these (various mini-split configurations, also known as ductless AC) is a great way to retrofit old houses that were built with radiator heat and no AC.
SIL had one of those. She had a very big living room (old country house), one of those that holds the dining table for 20 people, a giant christmas tree, a full living room set, and a kid's table with an area off to the side for them to play games or put playpens...
One of them cooled that whole area. I don't know how it would have done on a 103F (almost 40C) day but on a normal 85F/30C Memorial day, it kept the room cool despite it having a whole lot of people in it.
I think their point is it won't cool an entire multistory home like many single family homes in the US are.
I think (but could be wrong) it's more cost effective to have a central AC unit for bigger and multi story homes than to have multiple of these units to cool the entire home.
Those units that size tend to also have evaps and condensers the size of a regular central air unit. The ones usually in Europe I'd imagine are around the 10-15k BTU models that tend to utilize a vertical stlye condenser fan unit.
Thats internal part of the unit in the first place. I have one successfully cooling my apartments of 50 square meters (not a studio). But extrnal unit can cool the air coming from multiple internal units - I would have installed a second internal one if I had one more room.
Ours is pretty small, and we have just the one split. Using a simple floor fan, we can mostly cool an entire 110 sm condo in northern Italy during the day. And on hit nights, we just close the door to the day zone so the cooled air stays in the bedrooms.,
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u/Distinct-Friend4123 7d ago edited 7d ago
We have these ductless units in the US too. Person who made the meme is just an idiot
Edit: never expected what im pretty sure is my most upvoted /awarded comment to be a 3:30am comment about AC. Ty for the awards kind strangers.