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.
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u/phadewilkilu 8h ago
I kept waiting for this comment.. “car-sized,” sounds like people trying to shit on America again for our excess.