Do Air Conditioners Love Shade?
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- čas přidán 8. 12. 2023
- Is your air conditioner better off being in the shade or does it really not mind roasting in the sun all day? There's a lot of debate on whether putting an air conditioner in a shady spot makes any difference in efficiency and electricity consumption or not. I decided to dig into this and see for myself what the truth really is. It seems like the professionals tend to agree that shade makes no difference at all whereas homeowners that tried it both ways claim that having the AC in the shade actually makes the unit run less and cool down the house a little faster. Which in turn lowers the electric bill as well. In my opinion, there is no hard evidence to support either side but personally I side with those homeowners and agree that putting your air conditioner in the shade if possible is a good idea. Especially if you live in a hot climate. At the very least you get to be in the shade while working on it if it ever breaks down.
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The LONG term shade WILL make a difference. Do what you want to do, but HEAT is the killer of any machine. Any machine.
I'd like to say in summer shade will add a little efficiency. In winter sun will add efficiency. The reason for this is because in the summer you're trying to pump heat out and the sun will make it harder to cool the coils. However, in winter you're trying to pump heat into the house meaning that sun will help heat the coils. Depending on your area and whether you're using an A/C compressor or a heat pump will affect the calculation as to whether or not placing it in the shade is preferable.
In Phoenix AZ where the heat directly on the unit is so hot you can’t touch it - the shade absolutely matters.
Oh yes, luckily, my unit is on the ground but I will be adding shade cloth above it.
Seems to me heat almost always adversely impacts equipment, so if you can construct a (possibly covered) lathe fence around the unit, it will reduce noise and lower temperatures, and that's a good thing.
Based on what? Because you said so.
@@arizonaf2503 Based on testing it
@@rickstokes2239
How'd you test it??? I was on a roof all day today servicing ACs... it's what I do. Please tell of your test.
It amazes me how many folks deny the laws of physics. The effects of heat on an AC will always follow the laws of physics. Thermodynamics has to affect AC. The cooler the unit and the air would drastically affect the cooling. Also, humidity is a huge factor. We live in the south where summer temps are typically above the high 90s and we will have many days where the temps don't drop below 100 even at night. Shading the AC affects the AC's load and will make it more effective just because the components are cooler.
Yeah, that's why spraying a struggling unit with a water hose yields noticeable positive results, particularly on ones in the sun
@@InfernosReaper The cooling from water isn't necessarily from the air around it, it is from the evaporative cooling effect on the unit. The same way your body cools from sweating. Many window units have a splasher that spashes condensate water to aid in cooling the coils. The downside of using hosewater, such as with a misting system is you can get hard water buildup on the coils, unless you use distilled water.
PS, you should probably do a test before claiming tests are invalid. 1 hour testing is better than 0 testing. And if you don't like the test.... do it yourself before claiming you know the answer.
@@xerideaIt's very strange how you understand the all that with the first part within your post, but apparently don't understand that if the ambient temperature around the unit is cooler it can dissipate heat better.
If you did, you wouldn't be trash-talking me over someone else doing poor-testing and declaring it law.
If I wanted to deal with such shoddy science, I'd be subscribed to the Game Theory channel...
Wrong wrong wrong. Leave HVAC to the pros. Shaded vs in the sun is not worth even talking about. You want to discuss airflow, superheat, sub-cooling then you might be on to something even then you've just scratched the surface. Everyone stay cool and have a nice summer 👋
@@arizonaf2503 I dunno, radiant heat is heat bottom line. Cooler condenser means less load on compressor, maybe I'm wrong
Sun heats metal. Metal conducts heat to the refrigerant. Compressor works harder.
Is your car cooler in a hot parking lot or under a shade tree?
Does it take longer to cool your car after sitting in that parking lot or under a shade tree?
If you have AC thieves, it might be good to put the unit on top of the house.
Sun beaming in one standard sized window adds 5,000 btu's of heat per hour.
5 windows like that is about 1 ton of AC needed.
Water heat exchangers are super efficient. Watering down (no high pressure) your A/C coils can save money on electricity. Water cooled heat exchangers are typically used in commercial ice machines. They significantly increase ice production.
Try this - have your A/C running on a hot dry day.
Gently water down the coils for a minute or so.
LISTEN to the change in sound.
You can also feel the air on top of the unit change temperature too.
pulling cooler air through the coil will make subcooling faster which increases efficiency
An air-conditioner is a heat exchanger. All it does is move heat from one area to a different area, in this case fr9m inside of your home to outside. The outside unit (condenser) has to get rid of the heat absorbed by the inside unit (evaporator). The more efficiency the condenser can get rid of the heat, the more efficient the system can operate.
Shade can aid in system efficiency so long as air flow is not restricted, and or recirculated.
Yes!!! Pressure is directly proportional to temperature. And esp R410a refrigerants works better when it’s in the shade.The closer the ambient temp is to the operating temp.Heat will be harder to dissipate.
Another no- nonsense video , keep em comin’ Jay. Stay well my friend .👍
Thank you sir! Glad you liked the video. 🙂 Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!
The job of a condenser is to cool down and liquefy the refrigerant. The cooler the refrigerant the colder your AC will blow and the faster it will cool down your house, thus reducing the energy consumption and preventing the compressor from running excessively on a hot day thus extending the life of the compressor and reducing your power bill at the same time.
My compressor is in the shade and it's almost 30 years old. My neighbors have changed their AC system twice over the same years, spending many many thousands of dollars. So it's not just the electric bill where you save the $$$.
Video poster can't be bothered to know why anything works, he just decided an answer with no reasoning, then more or less ranted how everyone was wrong, with no valid reasoning.
Shade is the only way to go!
I know it seems anal retentive, but I observed the sun’s trajectory in my backyard and placed a shading device adjacent to my ac unit, shading it for the majority of the sun’s heat exposure.
Learned this hack at work: people who arrived early parked under the shade. As the sun moved, it was smarter to have my car cool when I got off from work, several feet from the shade💯
My house faces South so my a/c is on North or rear side. I put it under the deck and there is about 6 feet of clearance above it. I did that to shade and protect it from possible hail damage. Great video Jay.
I say that was a great choice! Good placement. Glad you liked the video, thank you for stopping by!
Best to just plant trees around the house for shade.
About 30 years or so ago I bought an A/C unit that I self-installed from a guy I knew that owned an HVAC company. He told me that he had a hose that would drip water on his unit to help cool the condenser. While I would never personally do that they now sell misters for that same purpose. You can find videos on CZcams if you're interested.
The misters ruin the coils.. shouldn't have constant water
Window ac units now do not have a drain plug for the condensation to drip from. Instead, the fan hits the built up water and sprays it on the condenser, just like what you said. Pretty smart
@@MrGriff305 Which is why I said that I would never personally never use a mister, the minerals in the water are constantly building-up scale on the condenser which in the long term will cut down on the efficiency of the unit.
@@TheScrubmuffin69 In hong kong it must be sealed or a drain to the ground. the law
Good thoughts. Thank you for sharing. Heat is our major concern in the south. Direct sunlight / heat destroys over time. No matter what surface.
My home in Washington state has the condenser/compressor on the north side. The house cools fast in July August.
Then I have a winter retreat in AZ and the condenser/compressor is located on the north side behind a block wall about 2 feet away. When I leave either place, I cover the condenser unit to keep debris or dust out of it. When I arrive, I take the cover(s) off. The cover does have vent panels on them to prevent to much heat or moisture captured in the unit.
My Washington AC had a complete shutdown this year. The contactor relay on the compressor shorted out, blew the transformer which also shut off the control board. Replaced the contactor relay and while replacing the transformer installed a fuse on the 24 volt output side. I keep a close check on things, keep them clean, change air filters. I observe a cycle for both heat and cool to see and hear anything odd, like a start strain or a delayed heat cycle start. The maintenance is simple, keeps things reliable.
Water defiantly helps, I know because I retired from a compressor station and we had a condenser on an air compressor control unit. Every summer when the ambient temps would get over 100 degrees we would place a sprinkler on the condenser and it would give us just enough extra cooling to make it through the day. But, we did find out we had to use soft water or it would calcify the coils on the unit, so I wouldn't advise letting water directly contact the condenser unless it is soft water.
Isn't soft water infused with salt?
Shade matters 100%
Where I live, ambient can hit 50.c during a heat wave. ACs won't work in direct sun.
Changing the filters in the house regularly is very important as well as not using a high density type of filter. Cleaning the outdoor coils is a must.
Your AC wants to breathe ! So putting a tent over it may block the sun , it will also restrict air flow . And maybe even causing the HOT air to bunce back at it ! You can keep your AC cool by using a sprinkler but that will just waste water and that to is a NO NO . My suggestion is to cover it with a shade made from some sort of slats so it can block the sun and allow the hot air to flow away from the unit . I'm sure you have seen these types of screens being used on modern buildings today .
I built a sun panel. Peak summer when sun travels full west, unit is in shade.
After mowing yard, unit get blown clean and rinsed.
Yup, big help. Every millamp helps.
The greater the differential in temperature between the outside air and the coils inside the unit, the more heat that's going to be dissipated, meaning the easier it's going to be to cool the house. Also, the cooler the running temperature of the compressor inside the unit, the longer it's going to last. Neither of these things can be determined easily within in an hour or two. They are facts that come with usage and monitoring over months and years.
Interesting info - great video. In Palm Springs last week, and a lot of the homes had their hvac units elevate off the ground, attached to the side of the house. After seeing your video I understand why.
Elevated / attached to the house construction.... is typical when the climate includes snow to give clearance.....or maybe even to prevent damage from occasional high-water during flooding conditions in other geographies...all dependent on local weather conditions being recognized.
The way to really test this would be two identical tract houses, and somehow set the temps exactly the same
Yup.. Would be a little challenging to do 😅
Makes a lot of sense. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us. 👍👍👍👍👍
You bet! Thank you for stopping by for the new video. Have a Merry Christmas!!
@@WordofAdviceTV - Merry Christmas to you as well.
This is really sensible. I've just viewed another video that claimed that shading your ac is a bad idea in general, and the argument of course was that if you block the airflow with the shade you're defeating the whole purpose. So with that understanding, of course it's a good idea to have your AC in the shade given that you don't block the fricking air flow. And I suppose also the caveat that it's only going to make so much difference.
And note: the one video offered here as an example of providing shade shows someone putting up a low patio umbrella right over the AC unit, impeding the airflow.
As the condenser is a heat exchanger, it makes sense to locate the unit in an area where the surrounding air is coolest. I've also heard that installing a condenser in an area where a cross wind can carry away the heat is also beneficial.
One of the things that has helped me was to clean the fins really well on the outside as well as on the inside and coat them with the ceramic coating like Simix
Another issue may be that the fan motor in a sunny location would get much hotter than the shade and not last as long. My compressor fan is scheduled to be replaced under warranty next week in Central Florida. My compressor is on the south side of the house and in the sun most of the day. My pool pump motor in on the same side of the house and I built a covering over the top 3' above it for shade. So far so good compared to previous pool motors that burned out or the bearings went bad prematurely.
I live in Plant City, Florida and on Sunday the day before Memorial Day I temped the air coming out of my air vents and the were as high as 64-65 degrees at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. My wife's office which is the hottest room in the house was at 68 degrees. I did the same test with my temp gun before the sun came up and the air coming out was 58 degrees, so in my opinion the shade has to make some what of a difference.
Do you have ducts in a poorly insulated attic?
@@amiatroll6347 we had new insulation done about 4 years ago.
It does, on both the system and building. Extreme temperatures hot or cold is the enemy of everything. We all (everything) have our peak/ desired operating range...
Units will last longer in the shade because it has a chance of cooling down between cycle's!
There's that too. I believe that keeping the unit cooler overall is better. More efficient and not as hard on the condenser.
Compressor is cooled down from the refrigerant, not the ambient air so it doesn't matter.
It's a cool day here in the Mojave Desert, only 108 here right now. With that said, I just ran a quick test on my A/C unit that sits on the sun side of the house using my Enphase App on the "Live Status" page. With the A/C unit running, and various other appliances on, I was consuming 7.8 Kw. I then shaded the condenser unit and consumption did not change (the unit was already hot). I then turned on the hose and sprayed down the outer coils of the condenser and the consumption immediately dropped down to 5.7 Kw. I turned the water off and the consumption slowly climbed back up to 7.8Kw as the coils dried.
What did I learn/prove to myself? If you can keep the coils cool, the condenser doesn't have to work as hard and power consumption goes down, a lot in fact. This would amount to a big savings over the summer. I suspect however, that if I continuously run water over the coils throughout the summer, I'll have a buildup on the coils that will eventually impede the cooling capacity. How do you win? IDK, need a smart guy to figure out how accomplish cooling the coils without the buildup.
"Very interesting" as Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh In. You covered all the bases as usual ! Inspired by your film , I checked the install manual for my Rheem AC. Shows clearances for air circulation , servicing clearances and some recommendations for install locations in corrosive environments ( e.g. near salt water). It does recommend elevating the unit above the base slab, if possible, as that can extend the life of the bottom pan and to not let lawn sprinklers spray on it. I suppose the outer shell of the unit does supply some temp. relief to the compressor ? What I really need is your learned advice on tank versus tankless water heaters. That might really generate some money differentials.
Glad to hear you found the video interesting! Thank you for sharing the further insights you got from your manual. I have little experience with tankless water heaters so I would need to do some homework before making any conclusions. I'll add this video to the list, thank you for the suggestion!
The reason commercial units are typically on the roof are to keep vandals (aka the customer) away from them and to reduce the length of the runs of piped in refrigerant.
When you can put it on the north side or the east side. The north side gets the most shade all day. The next best is the east side since the heat load in the building is lowest in the mornings, and the unit is shaded on the afternoon when it is highest.
Similar concept but I follow the timing and track of the sun. My thermostat is programmed to cool down the house to 70 very early morning when the sun doesn’t hit my unit yet. I let the temp in the house slowly rise to 80 during the day and only by late afternoon the unit will run again to maintain that. By that time it’s in the shade again since the sun is at the other side of the house by then. Unit is on south side, good location for winter when it functions as heatpump. For summer I had to be creative using the thermostat program.
One thing worth considering is that the compressor and other components will have a better opportunity to cool down between cycles if it’s in the shade. Metal surfaces sitting in the sun around here can easily hit 160° and up. I used to have bad problems with heat soak whenever it was in the Mid90s or higher. My condenser unit was also in direct sunlight from 11 AM till sunset. This year I put up a shed which gives it shade. And while that isn’t the only variable which changed this year, I definitely think it helped because I haven’t run into the problem at all yet.
When I had a tin roof put on my house last year, I had the roofers make a little "roof" over the outdoor part of my mini split system. The tin is pitched like a roof and sits about 3 inches above it and sticks about 6 inches out to the sides. . They formed the roofing tin so it just kind of snaps on. This is mainly to keep the rain and snow off it but does shade it without blocking anything.
i planted a holly tree to shade the ac units. direct sun has to cause increased load. may not be a lot, but even a little helps.
I only agree! Shade from a tree is a great option. 👍👍
Just provide plenty of breathing space for the unit and don’t inhibit the top of the units exhaust flow
Thanks Jay and Merry Christmas
Thank you! Merry Christmas to you and yours as well!! God bless you!
@4:17 that "shade" is blocking the top exhaust. All it is doing is forcing the hot air back down towards the condenser. The homeowner is doing more harm than good.
If you’ve ever lived somewhere that gets 125+ in the summer, then you know the answer to this question….
I put a sun sail over mine in Florida, the house stays 1-2 degrees cooler at peak when its 99-115 outside. Without shade, with AC set to 68, it will get up to 74-75. After the sun sail it will only get up to 72-73.
I've gotten 4 contractor quotes for an new central AC and asked each one if relocating the unit to the shady side of the house would be better. They all said no, but I can see where cooler ambient air temps around the unit logically should help. Maybe it's just not worth it in the PNW - although our summers are getting hotter and longer.
HVAC/R apprentice here, and in my limited time in the field in Oregon I can assure you, we replace far less parts on units that are shaded vs not.
Of course the people trying to sell more units are gonna tell you that. The faster your unit breaks, the sooner they'll be back to make more money from you.
I read an article years back that the government building in the city of Azusa, CA had the condenser submerged in ice cold water. At night when it was cooler, refrigeration freezes the water to ice so during the day, the heat exchange on the condenser is in a bath of ice water.
You seem like the perfect person to do this test properly.
Thank you! Doing this test properly would be a bit difficult so I dont know if I will ever get around to trying it. 😅
@@WordofAdviceTV Oh I totally get you. But maybe start small, like if others have done 30 min tests, make yours last say 8 hours? Then if there is nothing clear in the data, you would not have wasted hundreds or more hours for no reason.
Wow! Awesome video! The answer came right at the beginning! I like this video model!
I use a misting system, wrapped it around the unit with zip ties, it’s connected to hose on a timer, did all shade stuff and mist is the way to go can get it any home improvement or Amazon , I cut mine down to size 10 jets all I need and used the rest for patio, I’m in San Bernardino it’s freaking hot right now, take care
Forgot to add point the jets away from the unit , the unit will draw in the cool mist
Love your presentation!!
I brought my ac 2 years ago, and in the first month/season itself I saw that my energy bill almost tripled. Just with a 1.5 ton AC. I figured out that there were multiple factors that made the matters worse. One of them being lack of leakage protection, which meant that the AC had to work more than it had to. Another was certainly that the outdoor unit was partly in the direct sunlight which obviously made things worse. Although I could not use the AC this summer (the hottest summer ever) due to the house being renovated and new floors constructed. I'm positive that if I can get rid of the major culprits, my bill wont skyrocket and the AC would work more efficiently. I'm also sure that setting the optimal temperature (24-26 degrees C) will actually help reduce unnecessary stress on the AC. Hope this helps.
Shade is good but should be provided by products that are not opaque to wind.
Good info, I'd like to expand on one aspect though. People generally think in terms of average climate of a large area or State while ignoring the micro climates that exist within those areas. For example I live on Kauai where it doesn't get super duper hot but there are a few houses as well as a few select buildings in condominium properties that have their own heat sink going on to where if you walk 50-100 ft away to another building it feels entirely differently. It still becomes a necessary placement to put the unit in the hot areas of these buildings sometimes which has a high likelihood of affecting unit performance.
That's interesting! I did not consider that,. THank you for explaining, this is good to know.
FROM CHICAGO IM A #1 FOLLOWING YOUR VIDEOS GOD BLESS YOU EXELENT REASONS
God bless you my friend!! Thank you for watching from Chicago, glad you liked the video!
Learn to spell. And while your at it..read books and ask questions so that u don't live your whole life believing in an invisible Sky fairy
@@WordofAdviceTVgod is made up nonsense. Lose respect for your intelligence when u accept nonsense forced on you as a child
Refrigeration always always works off a temperature differential within the operating range of the refrigerant. If the condenser isn't cool enough, very little cooling occurs, so if you're in a locale where the condenser is in hot sunlight during the afternoon, it won't cool very efficiently. But also, air flow is very important, so any solution mustn't restrict air flow, nor cause warm air to recirculate down back to the condenser inlets.
Of course having shade over the unit will to some degree improve its heat exchange capacity. But don’t block the free flow of the exhaust air to the point of causeing a recirculating effect.
Fortunately, my two AC condensers are on the east side of my house-I live on a tree covered lot; the house has trees (lots of yellow poplars and red maples) shielding quite a bit of sunlight on all but the north side (front) of my house.
This was great, thank you!
Glad you liked it! Have a marvelous rest of the weekend my friend!
Very useful and if we stick around to the end... entertaining! lol .... Thanks for another 'cool' video.
Haha glad you enjoyed the video! Thank you for sticking around till the end 😉
I had my units moved from the south side of my house, where they were baking in the sun all day, to the northeast side, in the shade all day. It made an absolutely enormous difference!!
Agree, not enough time.
Finally some logic ! It makes total sense .
Even if it was only a minimal difference over the span of a half hour, that would still add up to decent savings and efficiency over the course of a decade.
Gotta think big picture, folks.
Yes, shade is better. Those short tests are not a good measure it takes hours to get to operating stasis. The sun's added heat increases head pressures, you just don't want to restrict airflow above the unit, heat removal is key. The biggest enemy of condenser efficiency and heat removal is a dirty coil, keep your condensing coils clean. Dust, pollen, grease (roof top units) are the culprits. Recently I had a Bryant scroll 3T unit R410a running high head pressure of near 600psi, landscapers had mulched under the unit and covered the pedestal up to the bottom......there was even mulch inside....cleaned the coil removed the piled up mulch around it and inside removed the sound wrapper, the high side pressure came down to 425PSI in 97F suction 125psi ambient full sun exposure after running an hour, high pressure lock outs no more.
The problem I have found with a lot of things in life is that realistically for most people it doesn't actually make sense to dedicate the time, money, and energy on setting up some nice enclosure for the AC.
If you went to resale your house buyers wouldn't really care about your enclosure.
So the shading would have to save you enough money in energy costs and maintenance costs to offset it's construction, which probably could happen, but that's the ultimate crux of the issue, you have to figure out what that time table looks like.
Are most people really going to wait 10 years to see a return on their investment? 5 years? 1 year? It all depends on how quickly that return happens.
This is the story of pretty much everything lol. It has to return the invesment. Things can return investment over but the longer it takes the less ideal it becomes.
The amount of shade is also a huge factor. 10 sf of shade vs. 100 sf of shade is very different.
Same question but with a heat pump. Does it work better in the sun? Yes
Hey 👋 good buddy I just found this video, good to see you Jay 👍. Well today is the one year anniversary 😢of my little Arnold death. A friend of mine on CZcams, Leo the beagle put Arnold pic on her community page for been a lot of nice heartfelt comments ♥️ but it's been a rough day I haven't went anywhere today its been a nice day I made a metal framed gazebo around Bigfoot and Arnold Graves and I welded it out of angle iron and put a heavy duty canvas cover and it's enclosed in to keep out leaves and rain. I've also been busy raking leaves 🍃 now there's a job I never liked doing but have to..hope everything is going well for you and your family I was thinking about you earlier wondering what my good ol buddy was up to..take care and God bless you and your family Jay much love to you all and thank you for being my friend I really appreciate you buddy..love you all hope you have a wonderful blessed Christmas 🎄.
Hey David!! Wow time flies.. It's already been a year since Arnold died. ☹ This time of the year will always be a time of remembrance for you but I'm happy to hear you have a community that supports you through this. The metal framed gazebo is a really cool idea, almost like a monument. It sounds like you have recovered a bit now too if you are tackling the leaves. I never liked raking leaves either so I can sympathize! We are doing good here, transitioning to a new church, meeting new people. Other than that, nothing really exciting to report. May the Lord bless you in the final days of this year in many ways! I'm glad I could be here for you, along with your other CZcams buddies. May you have a wonderful, blessed Merry Christmas as well my friend! 🎄🎄 Aloha from Hawaii!! 🌴♥☀
Yes shade makes a difference. At least to the service tech working on it. I lived in Mohave desert and we even had evap coolers blowing cooler air on them. to lower condensing temperature.
You can spray the unit. It will he fine, infact a company even sells a setup for ac units to spray water on them
I studied electronics in tech school and was taught that heat is your enemy in electronics. You want to keep the electronic components cool to prolong their lifespan. That is why, on the job, we would use compressed air to blow dust off circuit board components after opening up items to make repairs. Dust acts like a blanket and traps heat. So keeping the AC shaded makes sense.
The actual condenser is inside a shell which blocks all the sunlight, and you have a quite large volume of air constantly circulating - so the impact of direct sunlight is probably much less drastic than you think. Also, because the heat is forcibly ejected from the coolant gas at the compression stage unlike in a watercooling radiator, so I don't think you would see much difference from the condenser being a little hotter. Not until you start to reach the maximum capacity of the condenser at least (which certainly could happen for units that are a bit undersized or during extreme weather). All in all I would expect to see a small difference in energy usage that would be difficult to detect outside of a controlled testing environment. In practial use the outside conditions have way too many constantly changing factors to do any meaningful comparison testing. Im sure the manufacturers have done these types of test, but they are rarely keen to share their data (which is a shame). I'm sure there are HVAC enginershere with decades of experience that know these things much better than me though.
IMO there are lots of other good (probably more impactful) reasons to put you unit in a protected place or a covering though. Direct exposure to UV, wind and rain causes a lot of wear and tear. Coatings fail and things start to rust, dust and debris gets stuck in the grills decreasing efficiency ect. Condenser units may be made to withstand outside conditions, but they will certainly run better and for longer in a more protected space.
I understand your reasoning.But when these units go out in nature,that’s when the true test begins over a period of time(remember mass production)I know specifically for r410a gas.(and jus like any other refrigerants)theirs a pressure temperature relationship.And I tell you that the unit will use more energy if the ambient temp is near the operating temp.And also not to mention the components inside the equipment that’s has a temp point(caps,relays etc)remember it’s not how it’s affected once but the how consistent and constant the the elements are on the a/c.
Wouldn't a properly distanced shade also help with those rare snow days in hot climates? The Great Texas Freezes come to mind. My AC unit froze over because the house over hang is directly over the top of the unit.
If a properly distanced shade/cover were redirecting the water/snow/ice from the unit, then it would not have to defrost as often and the fan would not get stuck.
That Top Hat seems like a good concept.
Last Summer, we had an extended heat wave, for several days, and my a/c couldn't keep up. The temp in the house wouldn't get below about 82, I believe. (I set the thermostat at 76, usually) It wasn't terrible in the house, but the a/c was constantly running. The a/c guy said this was common during extended hot periods. I just may try the shade Idea.
Once the ac is running it only has to overcome the stored heat in the condensor if in the sun. Which will be gone in about 30 seconds of air moving over the coil. If the unit is on blacktop or a roof that is a different story.
there's a video on youtube where I guy put up solar panels for shade tied to the minisplit. It wasn't a super large hvac unit but the solar powered the a/c which was also tied to a small battery system.
if I were to put up some kind of sun blocker I wonder how much clearance you need over the condenser to ensure you're not blocking airflow.
Good stuff!
Love it!
Can you please make a video how to install a soft starter? I learned a lot from your video installing a hard starter but we have a new house and I’d love to install a soft starter so I can try using the hvac with a generator during power outages.
Yes, that would be a great video to make. Thank you for the suggestion, I will add this to the videos to make list.
My AC is on the west wall. 20yrs ago I planted 2 Bradford Pear trees 3 feet from the AC unit. I aligned one of the saplings shade to hit the AC perfectly. Then over the years, as they grew, the shade expanded to include huge portions of the brick wall and roof area. In central TX lots of 100+ days in the summers. Not only was my house more comfortable but also my AC lasted 22yrs.
no way to prove the trees had any effect
I think the shade would help the components to not over heat or deteriorate with the UV. The sun destroys anything, even products that are "uv resistant"
And if it's a heat pump, is it better to have sun?
In the winter or whenever your using it in heat pump mode (to warm/heat the home) more sun is good on outside condenser, In summer while in AC/cooling mode less sun, more shade is good. Read up on what a heat pump is and it will help to understand how the system operates...
I would imagine the manufacturers consider that most a/c placements are probably a combination of shade and sun.
Probably so. The units are designed for outdoor use after all.
thats why those idiots put it directly on the south side of the house. godamn unit is 130 degrees right now
Mahalo! Happy holidays
Thank you! I appreciate you stopping by for the new video, have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!
Excellent vid & info as usual ... But your jokes were , dare I say it ... For the '' Birds''...Thx and aloha my friend
Thank you Eddy! Haha yeah... The jokes.. The farm animals kept making noise while I was filming so I had to do some dad jokes involving the loudest of the bunch. 😅 Aloha and blessings from Hawaii my friend!!
I have a heat pump so shade could help in the summer but decrease efficiency in the winter. I would need a structure that could modified for each season. Possible but probably more expensive
Their umbrella test is a joke lol. My house is so much cooler overall on the north side than the south. Of course the builder put the unit on the sunny side lol
I have a tarp 7ft above the unit blocking the sun and my inside temperature decreased 3 degrees.
Excelent videos have a good day
Thanks, you too!
What matters is the insulation in the home and if your house is in the shade
This country is HVAC work 👍💐
What does make the most difference is the length of the run condenser to compressor.
i covered my unit in vines and bushes and tall grass to shade it
You are right, thanks
Glad you agree, thanks for stopping by!
It's more about PROPER shading. You don't want anything that's going to restrict airflow around the unit including weeds, trash cans, solid privacy fences (without air gaps), etc... Anything intentionally used to shade the unit should be at least 4 feet away and allow good airflow through it. i.e. Umbrella's are bad, they can trap hot air coming off the unit and heat up the area around the unit, but Coolaroo (or similar breathable) sunshade material is fine, as long as it's more than 4 feet above the top of the unit.
My AC is in the shade and this year I'm not turning it on. Fed up with the high power bills.
What about setting up a water misting system on the coils?
What if you just painted the shields white or added something like a gold reflective heat barrier with adhesive backing and a glass glass cloth backing?
It makes a big difference.
What about the durability of the a/c unit of one baking in the sun vs. one in the shade after 15+ years?