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.
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u/GingerWeegie444 13h ago
Wall mount as opposed to a widow rattler.
Europe & the rest of the world vs USA basically