Air Conditioner for a condo/apartment?

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by photon

A regular fan uses 10 to maybe 100W depending how fast it's going, so it converts that electricity to kinetic energy in moving air. As the air slows by hitting other air or walls etc that kinetic energy has to go somewhere, it becomes waste heat.

So the same as a 10-100W light bulb which probably is enough to be noticeable in a room over a whole day

Oh man.... that is definitely not how it works.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Oh man.... that is definitely not how it works.

Someone challenging Photon on his physics?

[photon]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Oh man.... that is definitely not how it works.

Where else is the energy going to go? Unless I'm underestimating the amount of work being done.

I played around with some online calculators as well, and 90W would be enough to heat a 15x15 well insulated room 1 degree C

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Someone challenging Photon on his physics?

I could be missing something obvious, wouldn't be the first time.

[_Q_]

Photon: You're assuming that the tungsten filament converts the same % of energy into heat as a fan. Essentially you're saying that they have identical efficiency, which isn't the case.

[photon]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Photon: You're assuming that the tungsten filament converts the same % of energy into heat as a fan. Essentially you're saying that they have identical efficiency, which isn't the case.

Are we worried about the efficiency of the object though? For a light bulb that's just a measure of how much energy goes to make light vs. being turned into heat right away, but for a room unless there's a window the light will bounce around until it's 100% absorbed and becomes heat anyway. Same for a fan, efficiency is just how much energy is converted to moving air vs. heat right away, and same thing eventually all the energy moving air just becomes heat. But in our case we're not worried about desired work vs heat, we're worried about where the energy eventually all goes.

Take a sealed room in a vacuum, it doesn't matter if it's a 90W light bulb or a 90W fan inside the sealed room, eventually both of those are going to be radiating 90W of energy once they've reached equilibrium aren't they? (I don't think a rotating fan is doing any work is it?)

[killer_carlson]

1) if you are in a condo read your bylaws to see what kind of air conditioners are permitted.

2) when purchasing a Danby style air conditioner, check the size rating. If it is too strong and you leave it in a 200 square oot bedroom, it will constantly be turning itself off because it quickly cools the space where it is located.

3) if your unit is heated by hot water pipes, consider having the zone valves cheked to make sure they are not seized open or shut as the case may be. There are times where the valve will fail and you are essentially having the heat on all summer.

[photon]

Turn off the pilot light for the fireplace if there is one too, in our old condo that thing put out crazy heat for being a little pilot light.

[Tyler12]

Originally Posted by photon

Turn off the pilot light for the fireplace if there is one too, in our old condo that thing put out crazy heat for being a little pilot light.

I agree, the 3 hours trying to get it to light in the fall was a fun one lol

[calgarywinning]

Here is a good tip for cooling down your Condo.

It's about using the outside temperature, which in Calgary means that you are good 95% of the time.

Most people that talk about ceiling fans are using air circulation and skin cooling factor. The real trick is knowing outside temperature and once it drops below inner condo temp changing your air with outside air!

Yes, when it's 20 in your condo and 12 outside you can change the air. How do you do this? You vent.

Take a high powered fan and close all your windows except your bedroom and your vent room. Point the fan outward so that it is blowing out and change the air in your house. It's amazing.

Poor man's air conditioning. It's amazing how many people will set a fan up near the window, pointing it in, thinking they are cooling the room. You want to blow the warm air out and suck the cool air in.

[ken0042]

As for a fan raising the temperature; if it doing it's job then yes it will cause the air temperature to rise. A fan cools you by allowing heat to be removed from your body in the form of water evaporating from your skin. If you remove heat from your body, that heat will increase the air temperature.

However the other thing is that the fan could be affecting the circulation in the room. For example if you are cooking on your stove you should have an exhaust fan running, not a room fan. That way the heat being produced will have a chance to escape instead of being distributed around the room. We ran into this when I used to work in restaurants. Newer cooks would bring in fans to try and cool the kitchen. However that would disrupt the airflow and end up raising the temperature.

My other tip for cooling an apartment; if you don't pay for water keep your tub full of cold water. (Don't use ice from your freezer though.) Having a couple of hundred litres of water at 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the apartment will absorb a small amount of heat. This works better in Calgary than somewhere like Toronto as we don't have humidity to deal with.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

3) if your unit is heated by hot water pipes, consider having the zone valves cheked to make sure they are not seized open or shut as the case may be. There are times where the valve will fail and you are essentially having the heat on all summer.

I am assuming that if it's stuck open there would be heating coming through the registers right? I would be able to feel the heat right?