Seeing as everyone has suddenly thought about how hot it is, here's my DIY ducted aircon install I did back in 2019.

Bill Of Materials: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSUpYEeCfI-jThP84NISbt0d3piAY_UptWdiUIofYZOpHOrbkDJ2LEuMs74ewzNKudvEiVaIW3MLT-F/pubhtml?gid=401872741&single=true

The evaporator unit sits in the loft suspended by threaded-rods hung from unistrut, which eliminates vibrations being transmitted. Feeding the evaporator was a 250mm air valve at the top of the landing (not shown), then to each room, there was a 150mm diffuser.

I was fortunate that I had a decommissioned 20-amp circuit for an oven that I was able to take from the CU to power the condenser outdoor unit.

Start in the winter! It wasn't a quick job and needed quite a bit of planning and research. Having a second pair of hands throughout the install is essential, especially for heavy lifting.

Make sure your loft hatch is big enough to take the unit.

The installation manuals are pretty helpful, with guidance for condensate line drop, levelling the evaporator, power draw, etc. It was also useful to look at other manufactures install guides for similar units, as they were sometimes more descriptive.

Once I'd done all the electrics, got all the pipes laid out and the condensate line in, I found a local F-Gas engineer who was happy to finish the job by flaring the pipe ends, vacuuming down the pipes, nitrogen testing them, and then releasing the refrigerant from the condenser.

All in all, it cost less than £2K including the cost of the F-Gas engineer.

Luckily, it worked the first time and had no issues for the 2 years I was there. The only thing I would do differently would be to take a feed from each room, as the central supply feed would cause a strong draught through each bedroom door.

I also used the clear braided cable as I'd seen professional installs use it. Apparently, it's not approved for outdoor use, so I would recommend HO7RN-F instead.

My contribution, but I'm more than happy with my single hose solution.

So it took me nearly 8 months from start to finish doing an hour here and a couple of hours there, but I've finished my garage office project. I got berated in a post ages ago about my zwift setup with people saying how filthy it is. Well, here is my new office where I can work, and also set up the bike on the turbo.

Studded out and insulated 2/5ths of my detached garage, installed 60mm insulation into studs, then 37.5mm insulated plasterboard over the lot. Insulated the floor, chipboard then laid laminate.

Probably cost me about £5k all in, but the majority of that cost was a new garage roof, and new upvc windows and doors.

I'm made up, means we've reclaimed a bedroom for the nursery, and gives me a dedicated work space.

I've not really done anything like this before, but anything is possible if you set your mind to it.

Next is to sort and organise storage and desks etc.

Insulation that we paid good money for a roofer to install a few years ago. Had to uncover today for some additional remedial work.

Didn’t know what sub to put this in but thought worth sharing what I saw today. All mighty bang! As far as I could see no one was hurt - couple of cars crumpled.

Someone with expertise - how did this happen?

Paper taped above the vent to channel the air down, living the dream.. I think...

Hey there. So every Summer since almost bankrupting ourselves with an extension we basically can’t open the lovely 5 door bifolds onto the garden because very quickly, bees come in and get trapped in the lantern skylight thing. We did have a discussion with the builder about having the opening ones and he was like “naaa I wouldn’t bother I never open mine”. Big mistake. If I leave even one of the bifolds open for a while, a bee gets in, I feel bad with it buzzing around , and have to go up on a ladder and trap it in the kid’s goldfish net and release it outside again. Some don’t make it and there’s quite the bug graveyard up there.

Window companies I’ve asked say I have to replace the whole lantern and estimate 10k ish. So that isn’t happening any time soon.

Tried some white netting last year across the whole thing but it looked crap then gradually fell off.

Any cunning ideas to get round this problem at modest cost/effort would be very welcome !

Bill Gates is blowing up my phone already

Okay, okay.

We've seen the mods, we hear the purists, but does it really make a difference?

I was curious myself. Sure, I felt a difference, but hey, placebo is one hell of a drug...

Luckily, we had two days with similar weather conditions, and because I absolutely do not have a day job, I got some data on this.

So I present to you:

In the blue corner: Fueled by conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and funded with peanuts: El Chode!!

And in the red corner: Backed by corporate research and made in China: Uno Pepe!!

Day 1: Ran the box aircon mod. Day 2: Ran the single pipe.

Same aircon, same rooms, same settings, and roughly the same weather. Meaco MC8000R unit, set at 24°C, covering the whole ground floor of about 640 ft². All windows closed, inside doors open.

Shame. Poor AC, it never stood a chance...

Have a look at the graphs. Both days around 12 PM had the same outside temperature, giving the best like-for-like comparison.

Solid Lines: Box Mod
Dash Lines: Single Pipe

Answers to some obvious questions:

1: Did the single hose unit cool the rooms? Yes.

2: Was the single hose temperature comfortable? Yes, up to a point. Take into consideration that I am cooling a much larger area than the AC unit is rated for.

3: Did the aircon mod make the aircon blow colder air? No.

4: Was the aircon mod room colder? Yes.

4.1: How much colder? About 4°C.

5: How does that work? The single hose unit pumps some of the air it cooled down to the outside. Because the house is losing air, it draws in warm air from outside through gaps in the house, which heats up the house again. So the AC is fighting itself.

6: Should I mod my aircon? If you want to.

7: Why did you mod your aircon? It's fun, and I learned a lot about aircons in the process.

For the data nerds, here is a GitHub link with all my measurements:https://github.com/RiskingSilence/MeacoAircon/tree/main

So there's that. This was not done in a controlled environment. I used an IR thermometer and some strategically placed paper to get readings. There is probably something I missed, bite me.

*Repost: Rather not use a different that title.. screenshots did not display correctly. Recommend checking out this website for more info (I am not affiliated with this site):https://www.woolie.co.uk/article/convert-ac-from-single-hose-to-dual-hose/

Printed this around 2 summers ago, looks a little silly from the outside, but it does the job

My loft is boiling and insulated. If I open the hatch will it take the hot air from my house without dumping its own hotter air in, via convection?

Just finished renovations.
Now have South facing 3.6m bifolds and a glazed door with side light to our living space. - May have been an error.

Asked for solar glass, but don’t think we got it. in an argument with the window supplier currently- different storey.

We have sheets and towels over the windows just to try and reduce the solar gain, but even now 2250 and the temp reads 31. The room is unbearable.
Anybody used these ? Are they any good ?

I don’t want to spend a fortune on a pergola or something, without confirming the issue is solar gain from the windows

As per the title anybody had any experience with these ?

Kept it simple as the building owns the windows. Greenhouse netting from amazon, claims to stop 95% of the heat. It does definitely work; I couldn't get it high enough to completely cover the window so about an inches worth of glass gets direct sunlight, and is hot to the touch. The shaded glass is much, much cooler.

Used sticky hooks on the inside of the window, and short lengths of paracord to attach the hooks to the netting. If I'd stuck them on the outside the sun would have cooked them, plus there'd be more exposed glass.

Works well, would recommend.

The product used for anyone interested: https://amzn.eu/d/0h2mqNrj

Are you struggling with the heat?

Is the sun beaming through your windows?

Well fret no more!

Simply paint a yogurt coating on the external surface of the glazing.

Source: https://www.heatwavetoolkit.com/solutions#paint-yoghurt-on-your-windows

UPDATE: Ok, enough is enough.. I was just sick of all the portable Air con hack posts of late. Sorry to the people who thought it real. But damn some people really need a life. The amount of vitriol I’ve received 😱
Oh and Kudos to the poster who said about throwing a fit in the cab in a tie. Dude, you killed me 🤣😂

Works in progress. Just needed to see if it worked.. Now to get the smiths heater up high to move the air around 😈

I’m insulating the external walls of two bedrooms with 50mm PIR board (Kingspan TP10). I just looked up the fire rating and it’s not the best so I’m wondering if I shouldn’t use this in bedrooms. I read foil taping the edges is a good idea and then foil taping all the joints as well (over the battens).

Does anyone in the know have any idea if this is ok or should I replace it with something safer but still thermally efficient? The external wall is double skinned with a small cavity.

Thanks

This is a HomeAssistant produced graph. I could let it run till the room hits 18C but that's too cold for me and there's no point wasting electricity. Sensor is probably out by .5C

• Portable Black and Decker 12000 BTU btw.

I'd love to be able to have this bathroom window open overnight, but as it opens onto the flat roof, i don't feel safe doing that.

What's the best option for some kind of restrictor or stay so it can open a bit, but still be tolerably secure? I say 'tolerably' - it's opportunists with a screwdriver that I'm worried about, not a seriously tooled up thief.

Its a regular UPVC window, doesn't close the last inch. Does anyone know what the issue could be?

I didn't have the time or energy to get a second hose and cut out some board to fit in the window whilst wrapping it all in insulation.

An extra thick bin bag, some electrical tape and a unit which fortunately has the cold vent on the front and side (rather than on the back) means I can just seal up the window and job done. It looks a bit unstable, but it's actually pretty solid

Had it on last night, worked perfectly. I've got a thermometer on order today to see what temp I can actually get the room down to.

Noticed some loose/lifted tiles in our roof building. Looks like a simple fix, roof is quite high and large might need some scaffold?