Use of Portable Air Conditioners / Heat Pumps?

[Ferdinand]

Further update:

 

It seems to be keeping my largish - 5x5.5m kitchen - quite convincingly cooler (22C) than outside (29C) on intermittent running on low after a boost early despite being provoked by a 400mm rather than 600mm ventilation pipe (ie 60% smaller) that just goes unsealed via a small window to the conservatory, which has an open window at the other end.

 

It will need tweaking to a 600mm insulated, properly sealed to a window or a wall vent, hose, which should do the job.

 

Getting a few strange noise, but that is perhaps because the venting is jury-rigged.

 

F

[oldkettle]

On 14/07/2022 at 07:44, Nickfromwales said:

Maintenance of the in-room units is a drag, as the tiny gaps between the heat exchanger fins catches dust extremely efficiently, and I have to take the unit outside and blow it all clean with my compressor and an air ‘gun’.

 

Where does all this stuff go when you blow it with the air? I know that vaccum cleaner is not nearly powerful enough to suck much out of the gaps, but if you blow at it doesn't it just go deeper? Sorry, confused here - and need to do the same to ours. 

[Nickfromwales]

17 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

 

Where does all this stuff go when you blow it with the air? I know that vaccum cleaner is not nearly powerful enough to suck much out of the gaps, but if you blow at it doesn't it just go deeper? Sorry, confused here - and need to do the same to ours. 

I disconnect the discharge hose and take the whole unit outside and sit it on a bench. It gets stripped down, and all de-crudded with compressed air. All the crud now lives outdoors. 
It’s a PITA which I will be happy not to have to deal with when the split AC units go in. Good deal on 2x ( 3 x 9000btu ) units from appliancesdirect.com so I can have climate control in 5 rooms plus my office / man-shed. I spend a lot of time in there doing M&E designs and it gets unbearable in the summer. My bad for not going whole-hog with insulated roof / walls / floors, but tbh I just didn’t anticipate being so busy with the consultancy stuff!! Lesson learned 🥺.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Nickfromwales

[Nickfromwales]

20 minutes ago, oldkettle said:

Where does all this stuff go when you blow it with the air?

Ah, apologies. I missed the actual question….  

The crud gets effectively removed by blowing the compressed air in the opposite direction to normal airflow through the exchanger, ergo it doesn’t get forced deeper between the fragile narrow fins

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Replies may be affected by the fact that the Peroni is ice cold and going down like silk. 🥵. 

[dpmiller]

you can get special flexible plastic combs with tooth pitch to suit evaporators etc, so you can remove the bulk of the crud mechanically

[Nickfromwales]

13 hours ago, dpmiller said:

you can get special flexible plastic combs with tooth pitch to suit evaporators etc, so you can remove the bulk of the crud mechanically

Even a paint brush is enough to bend and fold these fins over, they're ridiculously fragile. I will only use air now after learning this the first time I cleaned it out. The fins are literally like thick kitchen foil. I had to straighten the few I bent with a Stanley blade. 

[Ferdinand]

Seems to be working.

 

Just been in my conservatory, and the new aircon has run that up to 40C whilst keeping the kitchen at 23C. On low and the 150mm insulated hose is not here until Wednesday.. 

[Ferdinand]

Update.

 

The insulated 150mm air hose (shades of Fork Handles) has arrived. Very impressive.

 

Ran the air con on full when 35C outside, and it dropped the temp from 25 to 23 in an hour whilst tea was cooking, so seems OK.

 

Even with not-very-good seals. It needs some plywood nurdling I think. Plus some elephant tape.

 

So looking positive.

 

Will see if my proposed model of getting a lowish temperature by about 9am works tomorrow - external temp reported as 25C.

 

[Radian]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

Ran the air con on full when 35C outside, and it dropped the temp from 25 to 23 in an hour whilst tea was cooking, so seems OK.

 

Never mind that... what's it like at heating???😂

[Ferdinand]

8 hours ago, Radian said:

Never mind that... what's it like at heating???😂

 

Ask me in December.

 

🙈🙉🙊

 

[SteamyTea]

Have you put an energy meter on it?

If not, why not.

[Ferdinand]

46 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Have you put an energy meter on it?

If not, why not.

 

Because the energy meter is filed somewhere.

 

I'm seeing how much 3 hours of low takes and delivers this morning, via the electric meter.

And a Smart meter is incoming on Monday.

 

I have an OWL, but that is also filed somewhere.

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

 

I'm seeing how much 3 hours of low takes and delivers this morning, via the electric meter.

 

OK a few hours later, with the air-con-heat-running in the 28sqm kitchen on low.

 

Whole house has used 1 (one) kWh of electricity. Rounded down to the unit. TV news running in background. Lights on. Computer plugged in.

 

Kitchen temperature down by 3-4 degrees.

 

Conservatory has run up to a very hot temp.

 

Now to see how quickly it warms up when the machine is switched off.

 

Only issue: machine occasionally making fan-making-contact sounding noises. 

 

[Ferdinand]

OK. Reflections.

 

This portable aircon / heat pump is powerful enough to make a difference. I can see it being very useful to cool down in summer and warm up in winter, perhaps even for much of the house if I leave doors open. Potentially it *may* let me significantly reduce the amount I use the GFCH.

 

It will be cost effective if running at the times I want.

 

The biggest issue is that - either via the unit, the handheld or the app - programming cannot go beyond "switch on or off in X hours", which means programming the night before every time, or leaving it on full time with a thermostat setting. The latter runs the risk of it running when I do not want it to - eg in a cool night.

 

I don't believe I can put it on a mechanical timer for say 3 hours a day, and have it auto start at the default temperature. Testing that.

 

I can see daily programming before bed working, but the lack of long term programming is a disappointment.

 

F

 

[Radian]

12 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

The biggest issue is that - either via the unit, the handheld or the app - programming cannot go beyond "switch on or off in X hours"

Ooh! Sounds like a good opportunity for a spot of hacking. Tell me more about the app... does it look like a generic "smart life" or "tuya" app?

[Ferdinand]

12 hours ago, Radian said:

Ooh! Sounds like a good opportunity for a spot of hacking. Tell me more about the app... does it look like a generic "smart life" or "tuya" app?

 

They recommend the "Tuya Smart" app, and it is listed on the Tuya website wherever that is. Github?

 

I have attached the WIFI Manual below, from here:

https://www.electriq.co.uk/files/pdf/AIRFLEX15 WIFI TUYA 20190318.pdf

 

That is where my comments came from, after skimming it. My tests (next post) suggest that more information may exist in the unit for you to access. It seems to remember the thermostat setting, for example.

 

Reskimming there is a whole 1-2 page section I missed called Automation, that lets actions be triggered based on Humidity, Time, Temp etc. A integration with Google Home of Amazon Echo is possible (knew that). That may actually give me what I want, but may require the unit to be left on standby.

 

And they seem very keen on ability to run lots of air conditioners 🙂 . So buy some more. I'm more keen to leave the doors open and buy one.

 

AIRFLEX15 WIFI TUYA 20190318.pdf

[Ferdinand]

12 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

OK. Reflections.

 

This portable aircon / heat pump is powerful enough to make a difference. I can see it being very useful to cool down in summer and warm up in winter, perhaps even for much of the house if I leave doors open. Potentially it *may* let me significantly reduce the amount I use the GFCH.

 

It will be cost effective if running at the times I want.

 

The biggest issue is that - either via the unit, the handheld or the app - programming cannot go beyond "switch on or off in X hours", which means programming the night before every time, or leaving it on full time with a thermostat setting. The latter runs the risk of it running when I do not want it to - eg in a cool night.

 

I don't believe I can put it on a mechanical timer for say 3 hours a day, and have it auto start at the default temperature. Testing that.

 

I can see daily programming before bed working, but the lack of long term programming is a disappointment.

 

F

 

 

I have since discovered by testing that the machine remembers some things:

 

Thermostat temperature.

Fan setting (I think).

Mode it is in ie cool, heat or fan only (I think). This is moot between heat and cool, as the hoses need to be swapped around, and that has to be done manually.

 

That gives me hope that I can have it on a regular say 7am-10am or 6am-9am mains timer to run it in aircon (summer) or heating (winter) mode to reach a reasonable say 20C which will make the house comfortable without risking long-term-running by mistake. It also suggests that more complex remote control could be done via a House Management setup.

 

Encouraging.

[Radian]

7 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

They recommend the "Tuya Smart" app, and it is listed on the Tuya website wherever that is. Github?

 

 

Yes official open-source development tools are available on github e.g. for HA  https://github.com/tuya/tuya-home-assistant

Depends on how hacky you want to get.

 

But, from the user guide, some of the built-in app functions would seem to cover what you want to do?

 

"Automation allows an automatic action to be set up for the device. This can be triggered by the Time, indoor temperature, humidity of the room, weather conditions, and a range of other influences."

[Ferdinand]

10 minutes ago, Radian said:

 

Yes official open-source development tools are available on github e.g. for HA  https://github.com/tuya/tuya-home-assistant

Depends on how hacky you want to get.

 

But, from the user guide, some of the built-in app functions would seem to cover what you want to do?

 

"Automation allows an automatic action to be set up for the device. This can be triggered by the Time, indoor temperature, humidity of the room, weather conditions, and a range of other influences."

 

Yes - it seems they might.

 

I've reedited my post to note that I missed that on a quick skim.

 

More to experiment with.

 

Remaining main concern with the unit would be the strange noises it makes on occasion - which seems to me that it may be something like fan-strike as the temperature of the outlet hits its limi and before the thermal cutout activates.

 

I've been playing with it for a few days, so I need to decide whether I need a replacement or a return, but may try the app over the w/e first.

 

Generally it has been a very positive experience. 

 

I have had part of my career playing in areas adjacent to IT whackery-hackery, but I generally prefer to avoid it at home.

[Ferdinand]

OK. Playing.

 

Installed the app on the mobile phone.

 

It managed to switch the aircon on with nearly all the settings I wanted (something funny with setting target temp and time duration, which did not make it to the device) at the time I wanted. I'll see if it switches it off in 3 hours.

 

I need to understand how much intelligence is in the app, and how much is in the device, and whether in fact I need a resident iPad or similar to be in the house all the time to control it.

 

Hopeful. Ish.

[Radian]

The timing will be executed in the AC unit. The device running the app isn't required beyond programming the AC.

 

In case you've never encountered it before, the Chinese often use a short-cut for multiple temperature/time of day routines whereby they have three modes synonymous with 'comfort', 'economy' and 'frost protection'. Comfort would be the actual dialled-in temperature, economy would be 2C or 3C lower and frost protection would ignore the dialled-in temperature and use 5C to 7C instead. The saving they make in firmware is that the scheduler only has to store the mode (maybe as little as two binary bits) for each time slot instead of an actual temperature value. That remains global. Your AC may or may not have that degree of control but it might help to know this if it does.

[Ferdinand]

The Smart Meter is in, so the next experiment can begin after it has connected itself.

 

Which trakes 5 minutes to 2 weeks. Allegedly.

[markc]

2 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

The Smart Meter is in, so the next experiment can begin after it has connected itself.

 

Which trakes 5 minutes to 2 weeks. Allegedly.

My Octopus smart meter took around 3 months to start communicating, i don’t have or want a remote display so wasn’t bothered. I just got an estimated bill and when questioned they confirmed the meter still wasn’t sending any info.

[Ferdinand]

17 hours ago, markc said:

My Octopus smart meter took around 3 months to start communicating, i don’t have or want a remote display so wasn’t bothered. I just got an estimated bill and when questioned they confirmed the meter still wasn’t sending any info.

 

Smart Meter now connected to the Electricity Data.

 

Still waiting for gas - interestingly gas meter is rather further away. May be more than the nominal 10m - hmmm.

[Ferdinand]

OK. Next update.

 

1 - In warm weather this is quite capable of lowering my downstairs temperature by a couple of degrees, whillst using about 1kW+ of power. I have not had seriously hot temperatures since it arrived.

 

2 - The extra control via wiifi is worth it for the extra control. I aim to be working to the thing coming on between 7am and 11am when the temperatuer is above 19C, which can be programmed.

 

So I'll be keeping it.