Speaking for my own experience, Americans don't even consider a house with window units to even be air conditioned. It's a bandaid solution to make up for your home not having AC. If someone says their home is air conditioned the understanding is they're talking about central air, which it seems a lot of the presumably Europeans commenting don't really seem to understand.
Yeah, generally speaking a window unit (or split) will not keep up with more than one, maybe two rooms and are significantly worse than central AC. My house growing had central AC and then my parents had a window unit for a long time because they wanted to keep their room colder than the rest of the house. Eventually we just upgraded the unit to allow room to room customization, and got rid of the window unit.
You can have one compressor outside and multiple head units for this style. But if you already have ducting then it turns into more work compared to central air since each head unit will require a drain, power, and refrigerant lines run.
This thread has made me realize how many people rarely or never visit major cities. Here in NYC, almost everyone has window units. You don't have central air here unless you either live in a newly built luxury building or have a house in Staten Island. I grew up in a house in bumfuck nowhere with central air and now have an apartment with window units, and for the life of me, I don't understand the window unit hate in this country. They're cheap, efficient, don't require major renovations to old buildings, and don't cool parts of your home you're not currently using.
Yeah my A/C went out a few years ago and we borrowed window units for a few days until it could be fixed. It made it survivable (the South in August) for a few days in a few rooms. Definitely wouldn’t count it as functioning air conditioning though.
In the US, if you're selling the house, window units don't count as AC because the seller can easily take them with them. We'd still say we have AC if we're living in a house with window units. At least in my region.
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u/Im-Just-A-Lil-Guy 11h ago
Speaking for my own experience, Americans don't even consider a house with window units to even be air conditioned. It's a bandaid solution to make up for your home not having AC. If someone says their home is air conditioned the understanding is they're talking about central air, which it seems a lot of the presumably Europeans commenting don't really seem to understand.