Conditioning the air is done by using a process known as ‘free cooling’, in which a coolant absorbs hot air, allowing the cooling coils to pump out cold air. It’s slightly more science-y than all that, but those are the basic principles.
But you can look at a graph showing the inside of an air-conditioning unit and figure it all out yourself. What they WON’T show you are ways you really shouldn’t be using air conditioning. Here are a few tips for not abusing the gift of cool air.
Portable air conditioners are a real thing, depending on how you define ‘portable’. They can be picked up and moved, with a bit of effort, and they aren’t stuck into a wall. But they do come with their downsides, specifically that they need to be ventilated. All that hot air that isn’t being blown onto you will need to go somewhere, hence the pipe at the back, and some people don’t seem to quite get it.
This pipe should ideally be stuck through a hole in the wall, but out a door will do just fine. Keep the pipe in the room and you’ll end up getting blasted with both hot and cold air at the same time- which sort of defeats the purpose.
There’s a reason people in hot countries haven’t all died out, and that’s because they’re learned to deal with the heat. Not simply surviving and eking out a hot, bothered existence, but actually not really caring anymore. Sure, a bit of cool air is always nice, but it is possible to function in extreme heats like a regular human being. Air conditioning wasn’t invented to cool down the super-hot parts of the globe; its purpose is to provide cooling for those of us who live in changeable climates and can’t handle it when things get a little bit too hot. So in a sense, air conditioning in Canberra is far more necessary than air con in Abu Dhabi. Just remember that there are humans elsewhere on the planet dealing with much hotter temperatures, and getting over it.
Here’s something that doesn’t occur to a lot of homeowners: air con is expensive. Sure, it might be necessary, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with relying on it to cool you down, but it is possible to take it overboard. It’ll chew through your finances and break down if you use it too much, so everything in moderation. Air conditioning repairs in Canberra will cost even more, so try going for a walk to the beach, or drinking a cool drink. People did actually manage to survive before air conditioning was invented.