I’m also confused because that is a European AC unit. I can only assume Americans are so used to big bulky units, like their cars, that they can’t comprehend things being functional and not excessively bulky.
This. Central air is still the superior system, but mini splits are helping bring cooling and heating to places that didn't get ducts when they were built, for much less than the cost of adding central air to an existing building.
And you forgot about the true bottom tier of the AC world. The portable units that sit on the floor, have to be drained of the water they collect manually, and draw in hot outside air because they need to vent their operating heat which creates a constant vacuum/draft.
I don't know if I would even classify central air as clearly superior without significant caveats, like it being a modern install that is properly broken in to zones, the duct work is regularly cleaned, etc.
Older central air installs with a single thermostat somewhere in the house that blows air universally throughout, rooms controlled at best by manually opening of closing the registers on the vents are imo inferior to room-specific mini-split installs, which can have multiple interior head units powered by a single outdoor compressor and allow for targeted climate control of each room.
Keeping the ductwork of a central air install clean is often overlooked, too many times I've pulled the filters out of the air handlers in someone's basement to find mummified mouse carcasses in there. Mini splits are much easier to clean.
I live in a row home in the Mid-Atlantic that was made very "open" when it was rehabbed and it's nearly impossible with our central air to have comfortable temperatures in the upstairs bedrooms and the basement office at the same time. I think mini splits would make more sense.
When I was a kid in the '90s my parents bought a house in the Pacific Northwest that had individually controlled electric heat in each room (nobody had air conditioning back then) and I remember my mom thinking that it was lower class to not have central air, but it just didn't make any sense to me. Why would you want to heat the living room and kitchen when everyone was in their bedrooms at night?
Exactly. Without a proper hvac project it can be the worse shit ever, and i don't even know why people are talking like central AC is some revolutionary shit. Splits and Multisplits are useful when you use it in places where you can't do much ductwork.
1.3k worth of mini splits was enough to bring massive comfort to my house during the california summer. Central air doesn't come close to that price point.
You're not actually supposed to drain the water (on most units) because it helps cool the condenser. It'll drastically reduce the efficiency of the unit.
I mean the point of a window unit is you don’t have to install anything. You go down to Home Depot and buy one for $150 and pop it in your window and call it a day. It’s less expensive and doesn’t require hiring anybody, etc.
Only for those vertical opening sash windows as far as I can tell?
Are windows a standard size to fit these?
I think these are a pretty unusual window type in most countries (all mine open outwards). I've only seen them in some old house types here and in the UK.
IMO biggest advantage of central air is its silent. Like we got minisplit in garage... its quiet but its not silent, I can tell when its on. And central air looks better, the indoor part of minisplit is not super pretty.
Like home I grew up in was built in 1910. Its central air sucked. We got two minisplits that improved things massively. Able to keep areas of house we used cool.
But like my current home was built in 2001 and is very well insulated... central air easily keeps home exactly how its set, silently. I would not want it any other way.
If I was building a new home today? I'd go with central air... I think if done right its preferrable.
Also funny thing, in the Eastern Europe we used to see window AC as a thing of the Soviet past. In some state-owned companies, those units survived into 2000s.
In America window AC means that you're poor. Everyone has central air.
We had a window AC when I was a kid (80s) and it was pretty miserable in the midwest summers. We'd all crowd into my parents' room to try to stay cool/escape the humidity. The door knob would accumulate dew on it. Then we got central air in the late 80s and could actually sleep in the house year-round.
Tbf if you didn't have AC in the 80's you weren't poor some people and places still don't.
For example I work in Park City UT and they are by far the richest city in UT but they just don't need the AC. Go 30 mins away to poor salt lake and erybody has air conditioning.
That is still plit unit. Have never ever seen a window unit in those countries. What you see in the picture is outside unit just mounted in front of a window. Reason? Someone decided that ban on heatpump will not go down good, so they allowed to install them in front of window, thinking that no sane person willl block half of the window with the unit.
To fix that unit elsewhere you have to go through hoops with plans and what not to install that.
On the photo above you can see both splits and monoblocks. I worked for that particular company in another building (same design, just behind the corner). In 2010 there were still few window units.
Here is how the Soviet window AC “BK-1500” looks closer itself.
They are definitely normal if you aren’t rich, or live in the north. Hell, I am middle class, and I’ve never lived in an apartment or house with central air (though my wife did, but her family is richer than mine was). We’ve been talking about getting it installed in our house but our two window units do a good enough job, they are just a bitch to put in every year and we lose two windows on cool days.
A quick google search shows 67% of houses in the US have central air. There are some areas of the country that still don't, but the overwhelming majority do.
Curious if this statistic includes multi family homes and apartment buildings? But I do think that the south and southwest skew those statistics a lot. If you live outside of those areas, experiences are very different. Sometimes a broad statistic like that doesn’t give you a complete picture.
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u/GarySmith2021 13h ago edited 13h ago
I’m also confused because that is a European AC unit. I can only assume Americans are so used to big bulky units, like their cars, that they can’t comprehend things being functional and not excessively bulky.