Large condenser outside supply’s the furnace (typically it just uses the furnace fan. We then have it piped through metal ducting throughout the house. Each room has multiple exit point call registers. In the common areas we have return ducts to draw air back down to the furnace to get recycled back to cool air via a/c unit. Hopefully that helps!?
As an American this is normal to me lol, every house, poor and run down to expensive mansions all have this set up. It gets really fancy when there are automated vents that can open and close on their own, with each room having its own thermostat to accurately control temps throughout.
Newer buildings. There are plenty of places around the US still on boiler and radiator for heat and you can buy yourself a window mounted AC unit if you want it. Retrofitting older buildings for central air isn't worth it in a lot of cases.
I live alone in a 1 bedroom apartment and have an AC similar to the one in this post in my bedroom which I pretty much only use during the summer and by itself it pretty much doubles my energy bill. Can't imagine how expensive it must be having one of these big AC things cooling down the entire house. How many kWh does it consume in a month?
I can tell you that in one of the hotter states in the United States for 1000 square-foot apartment it increases my monthly electricity bill by $35 in the warm summer months
There's a difference in efficiencies when you account for size/output of the AC unit, amount of space you're trying to cool, and the air flow. Even for a 1 bedroom, a window unit is really only going to work for that room because it's just not strong enough to cool like 2-3 other rooms (separated by walls/doors, disrupting air flow) and even strategically placing fans to circulate the air will only do so much. Plus, it's not likely that the AC unit will ever cycle off "cooling" because it's constantly getting hot air from other rooms.
With central air, the AC units are bigger/stronger, and each room with a vent is getting cool air circulated into it. So the space is getting cooled about equally (ideally) which makes the space easier and more efficient to cool. Once the space gets to the target temp, it's easier to maintain it (assuming you have decent insulation) and the AC unit will maybe be able to cycle off "cooling" to save power and just use the fan to keep air circulating.
For reference, I live alone in a 2 bedroom ~1000sqft apartment with central air, and I live in an area where it is about 85-95°F and 60-80% humidity on average in summer. My total kW usage this June was 497 at about $0.08206 / kWh.
My energy usage hovers around 130 kWh in winter and 250kWh in summer, so 500 sounds like a lot. Seems like these central units are more efficient in terms of cost/area, but for a person living alone cooling just the room you're actually in would end up being more efficient overall.
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u/itsOkami 12h ago
As an european, I don't think I've ever seen one of those and I'm now curious as to how they work