this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Same. Love this guy. His video about how those roll-around "portable" HVAC units being hot garbage made me both upset I had ever used one, and also excited about the future of heat pumps... then he started doing more videos on heat pumps!
He definitely didn't make me upset for having a portable AC unit. It's... not power efficient, but it does keep my house cool enough to work in on the worst days.
He did sell me on heat pumps, though. I'm hoping to have one installed this fall, which will remove my need for that big luggin' AC unit entirely and totally get my house off of oil.
He actually might be wrong about the efficiency of the single-duct models, too. I read a counterargument that they actually work more efficiently than the dual-duct kind due to the fact that they're dumping heat into cooler indoor air to vent rather than trying to further heat up already-hot outdoor air. True, it causes some outdoor air to come inside in the process, but you're going to want some degree of air exchange anyway.
The newer systems for rating the efficacy of these units may ultimately account for all this. They basically make a mockup of a standard room and hot outdoor space, run the unit in it for a period of time, and then measure how much electricity was used to cool the interior by X degrees. Ultimately that's all that really matters - how much electricity gets turned into how much of a drop in indoor temperature.
To be fair to portable AC, they are inefficient but functional, and you can improve their efficiency with a variety of methods such as insulating the tubes.