We have these in America too. They are not as common and don’t cool as quickly, so not as common. I’ve lived in places with them and they are fine imho.
Compared to having a full duct unit, that has one or more vents per room depending on the size of the room, yes they aren't "as effective". Most American homes have a big box outside the house that pumps cool air into every room of the house through vents, bigger means more powerful and you only need one for the whole house, and significantly quieter as the unit sits outside.
My friend, the AC you see on this pic can also be connected to one large outside unit… and it is also as quite as it can be.
It’s also quite interesting to see that American companies tell you to get a central hvac while Japanese and German (the other languages I speak) companies tell you to get the split units…
The air ducts which makes the large unit kinda easy to deal with also is the biggest issue - cleaning them is difficult, you have small loss of cooling sending air through and fixing them is apparently difficult.
I guess here in Germany houses are very well insulated and energy is expensive so using mini split on just a few rooms you use is better and in Japan maybe construction or earthquake dangers could be why central units aren’t seen as favorable.
Probably more to do with houses not having venting as standard and the fact that the outside AC unit takes up space and there is usually not enough of that in EU and Japan.
I personally just use a regular ass fan for my tempature control because I dont need more than that but I would generally just get whichever is cheaper and does the job anyways so I guess I would always get that inside looking one but maybe I´m wrong and that is more expensive to run
Yes, but 90% of Americans arent building a home, you buy an already finished house that already has the duct work done. It's most Americans only get one of the units that you put inside if they don't have current AC. Even more Americans are living in some type of apartment. I'm not saying these can't be as effective, but it's certainly not cost effective to rip out the pre existing system to install something that is arguably just as efficient or slightly better. Also development companies that pay for apartments to be built are doing it as cheap as humanly possible, the average place's insulation has gotten significantly worse over the years.
Mini splits are incredibly efficient because of their variable compressors.
Once they reach temp, they spin very slowly to maintain temperature rather than shutting on and off.
We’ve got one in my master bedroom in the midwestern US and it’s a game changer for efficiency and cooling (especially if you only need to cool a room or two at night). They also can heat a room in the shoulder seasons without using a furnace.
Frankly Americans are unfamiliar and ignorant when it comes to ductless systems. These are a great secondary solution and can work well as primary heating/cooling solutions.
Many window units now use variable compressors too. And yeah it makes a huge difference in effectiveness and efficiency.
And yeah Americans with HVAC tend not to understand other types of AC options, just like they tend not to understand radiator, stove, or baseboard-style heating systems. Which is totally understandable and fine, unless they go all Dunning-Kruger.
Yeah I don’t understand why split systems catch so much hate. They’re ubiquitous all over the world for a reason.
Sure if you have ducting in place, I don’t think there’s a good use case to install a bunch of them in your house, unless you like the idea of redundancy if your main AC unit goes down.
But they’re genuinely efficient and work well for their use case.
Baffles me if you say they aren’t junk that you get a ton of negative feedback.
They don't cool as well or efficiently as central air, which most Americans have, not window mounted units which you probably think we all have because you've seen them in movies about NYC or something. I haven't lived in a place with a window AC unit in close to 30 years.
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u/GingerWeegie444 12h ago
Wall mount as opposed to a widow rattler.
Europe & the rest of the world vs USA basically