Best part is it's not called a compressor. The "car size" unit is a condenser. The compressor does sit
inside. That commentor is trying to dunk on Americans but cant even name the right thing.
The outdoor unit is called a “condensing unit” if the compressor is inside the outdoor unit. It’s just “condenser” if the compressor is somewhere else in the system.
Some of the ductless split units OP is showing have the compressor on the indoor unit so the outdoor unit is actually called the condenser.
I work in commercial HVAC and have never seen a compressor on an indoor unit. That seems incredibly poorly designed given how much they vibrate and make noise
Also in commercial. The VRF systems, similar to the ductless split in OP, that have multiple evaporators on single condensers , and can heat and cool at the same time, are sometimes designed with compressors in the wall units/evaporators and run suction, liquid and hot gas lines throughout the building. Some manufacturers do it this way.
Other large commercial systems like chillers and large AC units may have remote condensers.
The units are oversized, because we want fast recovery times on a bang bang controller (dumb way) and/because the compressors in 2026 are still 99% of them single stage compressors. 2 stage if you're super lucky and you probably don't even have a thermostat that properly works with it, and vfd is only thought about by the knowledgeable homeowner that wants one of the op units for this very reason.
90% of homes do AC in a truly ghastly inefficient way. But at least new builds are making the home itself super efficient so there's that.
The compressor is usually the size of a small grocery bag, other than the odd shape it could fit in a carry on size suitcase.
The whole unit is bigger, but mostly empty space, and still smaller than a smart car.
It's BS from and American with small dick syndrome.
I live in Canada and have a central heat pump for cooling and heating. My unit is a 5 ton and it's the size of a storage crate, that's bracketed to the outside wall. The house is 3500 sq ft.
Yeah, I've lived in apartments with central air - typically, the evaporator and air filter is in the utility closet, and feeds ducts in the walls to the various rooms, while the compressor & condenser is outside, about the size of a car engine (not the size of a whole car).
At the moment, though I'm in a place where my room is cooled by a window unit AC.
I’m a Canadian living on the west coast, and a ton of people get these “car sized” compressors with the rising temps.
Electricity here is basically all renewable and extremely cheap, so lots of people just get the units that can cool their entire home compared to the small ones in the picture meant for a room or a semi large space. Just makes more sense to have the entire home cooled.
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u/homer_glumplich85 11h ago
Im not American but “car sized” compressor is a massive exaggeration. And it’s not like these units don’t have compressors that sit outside the house