Split airco in spring last year. I live top floor, flat roof with the living room facing south. Summers get real hot nowadays here, so last year was the first comfortable summer in our apartment in years. In winter we paid a fraction for heating as well. Best purchase in a long time.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 2 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

What is "split airco"?

[–] toadjones79@lemm.ee 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Air conditioner. Split HVAC system is the kind that has an external evaporator that connects to a small wall mounted inside heater/air conditioner with just a small pipe. So you don't have to give up a window, and it uses an extremely efficient heat pump to both cool in the summer, and heat on the winter. Some of them don't heat.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 3 points 22 hours ago

Oh. That's the norm here. They're wonderful devices.

[–] ReasonablePea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

They probably mean mini splits which are usually attached to heat pumps which I think they implied by the savings in the winter

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I have no idea what the jargon you're using means.

I have a semi-cylindrical box stuck on the wall near the ceiling in my bedrooms. They each, when in operation (and thus with the vent open) has a small set of radiator fins visible. Each has a pipe that goes out through a hole in the exterior wall. On the outside is mounted a larger box that has a large fan, a compressor, and a larger set of radiator fins. In the summer they cool. In the winter they heat.

In the living room I have a large stand-up cabinet in place of the thing stuck on the wall. It otherwise performs the same task, with a (larger) pipe going out to a (larger) box with a compressor.

Is this what you're talking about?

[–] ReasonablePea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

Yup, that compressor and tubing and fins is describing a refrigeration cycle. In the summer you are using it like a traditional AC where it soaking heat in your mini split and sending it out to the heat exchanger outside built around your compressor to dump that heat in a hotter environment than inside your house (amazing I know!) due to the change in properties of the refrigerant when compressed (or expanded). This process is effectively reversed in the winter to take energy which exists in the cold outside air and pulls it in to your house by expanding it outside. Compressing or expanding the refrigerant effectively makes it colder or warmer (whatever is advantageous for the situation) to be able to extract or dump heat into it.