District cooling...

My sister is complaining about the hot weather. Even with air conditioner, her house is hot... at night. Luckily I don't live in that big big city.

My friend Simone told me that the big big city is indeed very hot, the water is not as clean as our water. Hot spot maybe? Too many tarmac, less trees and poorly planned 'world class' city? I've never been there so don't take my words.

According to my sister, her apartment (eh, what's the difference between a condominium and an apartment?) has low ceiling. Split unit air conditioner, but no ceiling fan. Without the fan to augment the air movement, it's unbearable.

Well, in this region, there are 2 school of thought when it comes to fan and A/C. Some, including me thinks that the fan help moving the cool air, making it efficient. Chill factor like snowstorm.

Some like my uncle thinks that by doing so, makes the room hotter. Which is hard for me to comprehend. Maybe that's the typical Asian thinking. I read quite a lot on keeping the cooling cost lower in summer, be it in America or Australia... most would recommend setting the thermostat a bit higher than usual and switch on the fan... to summer mode.

Yes, to Asians living in the tropics, our fan is built to be in summer mode, permanently. So the fact that one can flip the blade or reversing the air flow is strange to us. And switching on the fan in winter sounds absurd to us. Do you really need to cool the house in cold weather? one might ask. Well, I used to laugh at the idea of switching on the fan in winter. I was reading Popular Mechanics and there it was, a HUNTER fan advertisement. I was 10 then.

Back to air conditioning. Why aren't there district cooling in our housing. I think that district cooling is more efficient than having individual A/C unit. There is one company which produce efficient district cooling unit. Basically, the unit 'store' ice. It produces ice at night when there is low demand on electricity (for the compressor). On hot day, the ice acts as heat sink, only running on pumps and fans on hot day. It uses less energy, but why our housing isn't using one. Or absorption chiller, using heat to produce cool air. Something to do with halide evaporation thingy thingy... Too bad I don't study physics at tertiary level... (damn biology)

Almost all house have their own ugly outdoor units. Yes it's ugly. And noisy. One for each room. So if one house have 5 rooms (5 indoor units), they would most likely to have 5 separate outdoor unit instead of 1 big outdoor unit, strategically placed outside, easier to hide. The outdoor unit would be mounted on the wall directly outside the indoor unit. And the noisy compressor is just outside, and the windows are thin. It makes no difference in term of noise with window units or through wall units. So it negates the purpose of installing a split unit. Funny.

Think of it as a reverse of district heating. Some cities have district heating. There's a big heat generator, and the hot water produced is piped to houses to heat the house...

Even a conventional one is more efficient. Well, one can harvest the hot air produced by the A/C to heat water (like hybrid water heater) or use the hot air to dry clothes. So less energy loss.

Maybe the main issue here is how to get fresh air. Again in this region, energy recovery ventilator (ERV) or heat exchange is a foreign idea. So it is quite common to have stale air in air conditioned house. Like really really stale air. Another reason why I hate air conditioned room. I can install ERV, of course, but the price is prohibitive. No demand on such appliances. Less demand, high price... same goes to dishwasher, or gas dryer (any dryer in general).

No, I am not against air conditioning. I wish I could. My slum neighbour is very noisy. Right now they are revving their motorbike, actually moped... again, nobody here would know the difference between a moped and a motorcycle, anything with engine and 2 wheels are motorcycle... or scooter. With air conditioning, I could just shut the windows, eliminating the unnecessary sound pollution, produced by those bastards. So cross ventilation is the cheapest and greener way. It's better actually if you have good considerate neighbours and not construction nearby. I have to mop the floor more frequent now. Last night it was very windy and the living is dusty. I just mop the floor yesterday morning.

I just wish the inconsiderate, coconut and mango stealing slum dweller move far away from here... or a big fire razing their house. Of course sparing those good, God fearing slum dwellers... they are very pleasant to live with.

p/s Winter mode pushes hot air downwards right? And that's how our fan works. Engineering fail! Well, we have low expectations on fan. As long as it creates breeze, it's working. No wonder my granny told me her ceiling fan draws hotter air than her table fan. Again, her ceiling is lower than ours.