tpw21

After 5 years of suffering, we’re planning on getting air conditioning installed before next summer. I’ve heard stories about it taking months to get it installed due to demand, is this true? How much does it tend to cost for installation in a medium sized apartment? And how long would it take?

Thanks

modicasa

Get it installed in winter and it will be quicker, aircon men won't be too busy when there's snow on the ground. AS for cost - if you want class AAA hot and cold then it wont be cheap, but you will need an installer to calculate your cubic metrage and then work out how many BCU's you need. It also depends if you are having 3 single units or 3 internal unit and a single external unit, and all the variations thereof. As well as the distance between the int. units and the external ones -and where they have to go - there are loads of rules about proximity to neighbours windows, use of airspace of others roofs and so on.

Geordieborn

Do people in Italy ever use standalone units? I've looked briefly here in the UK for both heating and cooling (which if I live long enough I'm sure we will need) and came across what looked like "portable" units. I also came across air-filtering systems that to me seemed like a form of A/C... But I wondered where Italy are now as many years back they were far ahead of the UK in terms of air-source heating and A/C.

modicasa

The portable units are great on paper - but you have a machine which is pumping out lots of cold air from one end and hot air from the other - which has to go out of a door or window - which means the effectiveness of aircon with the window open isnt that great. And they're much noisier than installed units.

Pulaski

There are three types of AC, or four if you include the portable type. The most expensive and difficult to install, especially retrofitted in a house not designed for it, is a system that requires air ducts to deliver cool (or heated) air to each room. I doubt that would be practical in most Italian homes, and especially not flats.

Then there are window units, designed to fit in an open window. The machinery hangs outside, but it sits there blowing cool air in and heat out.

The system I think you're talking about is a "mini split system", which is similar to the ducted system I described above, but instead of blowing cool air through the supply ducts, the refrigerant is pumped through a narrow copper pipe to each room, and then air is circulated through a heat exchanger on the wall, and the warm refrigerant is pumped back outside to dump its heat. .... And what I would be most concerned about is how noisy that inside fan-heat exchanger is, because the only time I have ever lived in a home with that type of AC, the inside fan-HE unit made a lot of noise. The cool air was pleasant, but the noise was disruptive. I would hope that the system specifications foe mini split systems include a dB rating, so you can compare the amount of noise different systems make.

Geordieborn

Like I said my interest was more to do with looking at air-filtering for a small bungalow for avoiding high humidity here in the UK. That did lead me on to combination units that dealt with heat, cold and humidity, hence the interest. Personally, regards a/c one room would suit me fine – likely the bedroom to sleep in comfort, so noise could be an issue. I agree with Modi on the portable a/c units, but wonder why some ingenious Italian has not come up with heat extraction via the stuffa! It also surprises me that having a portable a/c unit with a big fat extraction pipe can’t be resized to a wall hung unit with extraction through the wall. Certainly an apartment might cause more issues, but our old house would have been more than suitable for ducted extraction as the roof void was very accessible. My main point would be/was to not think you necessarily need full house covered a/c?

philat98

If you have to cool every room in summer you could have a very big electricity bill. We pay around €50 per month just for the fridge freezer.

Pulaski

The thing is that cooling and dehumidification pretty much go hand in hand: to dehumidy air you cool it, artificially creating dew (condensed water vapour), and if you want cooler air, as a side effect you condense water vapour ... its the same process.

Once you have the equipment for an air-conditioner, it is very easy to reverse the process in winter, (its just improved controls) pulling "warmth" from outside and bringing it inside. .... The AC unit we had installed a few years ago, will run as a heat pump all the way down to an external temperature of -4°C, and only use gas to heat the house if it is colder than that outside.
That's pretty much what a window AC unit is - a wall unit installed through a conveniently-already-available hole through the wall - but they are noisy, and quite heavy. The split units are far superior because instead of being restricted to a window, or a wall area that is suitable/ convenient on both the inside and outside, with a split unit, the outside unit can be placed somewhere convenient on the outside, and the inside unit placed somewhere convenient inside, and the only required connection between the inside and outside units are two runs of microbore copper pipe to carry the refrigerant.