Here is a question for you all. I have central air, but I hate to use it if it is not necessary. Right now, every room of my house is fabulous, with the exception of the office, which is always hot because of the monitors and computer equipment. Would it be more efficient energy wise to purchase a small portable air conditioner for this room only than to run central air? If so, what would you recommend?
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Tom
Sit on ice.
jrg
A laptop.
Liberal Sandlapper
Short answer – if you want to only cool the office, yes, that would be cheaper. But check the SEER rating and cost of use labeling and make sure you get the most efficient room conditioner available.
TBogg
Move to San Diego.
You’re welcome.
Just Some Fuckhead
Get a box fan, blow out the hot air.
MMM
Just take off your Steelers’ jersey.
Janus Daniels
Second on window fan to blow out the hot air. If something prevents that, and you have dry summers, I recommend window swamp coolers (also called evaporative coolers); inexpensive and impressively energy efficient.
MikeJ
Water cooling system for the pc, use a flat monitor that puts out minimal is any heat.
Water cooling is a pretty icky answer, but would actually help if you don’t mind geeking out for an hour to hook it up.
handy
@TBogg:
Marine layer ftw
Ken
Does your office cross ventilate with any other room? Maybe a fan to push hot air out.
Michael
You may want to consider a more robust cooling system for your computer. better for both of you.
Jon H
Put in a ceiling fan?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
Can you open a window? Run a fan? Install a ceiling fan? Any one of these uses less power than an A/C. If that’s what you have to do, cooling just the office instead of the whole house is much more efficient.
My guess is that it would be true regardless of how inefficient the window unit is. Just think of the volume of air, furnishings, walls, rugs, (Tunch) etc that you have to cool in the whole house vs. what’s in the office.
Also, too, turn off every piece of computer equipment you’re not using until you need it. Every Watt of power wasted eventually turns into heat.
This has been Ridiculously Long Answers to Simple Questions
ulyssesunbound
If you really just want that one room cool, it;s much cheaper to run a window AC then central air–assuming your house is 1,000 sq/ft or more. The amount of power the central air unit would use to cool your entire house down to the temp you want that one room would be much much greater than even an inefficient window AC filling 80 square feet.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, sit naked in there and use Cheeto dust on your body to keep the sweat from running. Just trust me on this.
South of I-10
I’m with JSF, get a box fan and put it in the doorway to blow in some cool air.
ETA – Not with JSF on the cheeto dust, that would probably be itchy.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@TBogg: Right now in South PA for a few weeks, we have San Diego (coastal, not inland) weather. 50 degree nights, 75 degree days, no humidity.
And none of that San Diego beach fog in the mornings, either. It’s splendid!
middlewest
This will end in fire.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBogg: That place is overrun by bassets.
Just Some Fuckhead
@South of I-10:
The pets love it. They would love it I mean.
General Stuck
Window units are money pits. Especially if you turn them on and off. Date a fundie babtist if you want a cool bedroom.
you are wilcome.
JGabriel
Florida has arguably outlawed sex:
Seems straightforward enough. Some people think this is going to hurt Florida’s honeymoon & tourist business. I think they’re wrong: nothing turns people on more than thinking they’re getting off illegally.
.
cinesimon
I’ve long been a fan of consumer advisories when it comes to making such decisions.
Read this:
http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2008/06/air-condition-1.html
Captain Goto
What everyone else said.
/heat transfer PhD
Captain +2
carsick
Turn on the central air fan (if you have central air) and not the air conditioner. Uses a lot less energy and spreads the hot air from just one room and mixes it with the comfortable air in the rest of the house.
Just Some Fuckhead
@JGabriel:
Right? That makes it double hot.
Vigouge
A better cooling system for a PC will do nothing but make the PC cooler, in fact it may even make the room that much warmer (not likely unless John is running a Beowulf cluster of Pentium 4 D’s). A more energy efficient PC or monitor will make the room cooler simply because you’re reducing the amount of heat produced, but just adding an air conditioner will be the simplest option.
WereBear
So let me get this straight; bestiality used to be legal in Florida?
Left Coast Tom
I’m sort of with TBogg, though perhaps 500 miles to the north…why does one need “air conditioning” with nighttime and morning fog and low clouds, and strong afternoon winds off SF Bay? Houses have windows, do they not?
Just Some Fuckhead
@WereBear:
Duh, Democrats ran the state up until the 90s.
jrg
@WereBear: Not so much legal, more like “decriminalized”. Think “Amsterdam hash bar”, only with more pygmy goats and fewer teeth.
cbear
@JGabriel:
Goddammit, I live in fucking Florida and nobody told me about this new fucking law.
Btw, anybody in one of the more progressive states wanna buy a slightly used pygmy goat? She don’t eat much and is real friendly.
Quicksand
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Also, none of that San Diego beach, too.
bago
Laptop, different room, and don’t learn how to thread so you can execute on all cores at the same time.
PeakVT
Ceiling fan.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear:
Coincidentally, mine died recently in a harmless fertility ritual. I’m not sure if I’m ready to love again yet.
RossInDetroit
We use a small window unit to cool a top floor room that would require refrigerating the bottom 2 floors for the central air to do the job. The unit efficiency is lousy but it’s only doing 400 sf of room instead of 2600 sf.
fhtagn
Construct a treadmill-powered fan. Either use for personal health, or place Tunch thereon, with a clear contract of tuna for mega-watts.
WereBear
I seem to remember John lives inland, in West Virginia.
Just opening a window does nothing. And it is May, for heaven’s sake.
I was going to say “get a laptop” but he’s a gamer, too.
So it’s just shut down the central air, get a window unit, and live in the computer room. The heat will make the pets comatose, and he can get stuff done!
There you go.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: It was that fucking Cole that sparked my interest in the breed. I oughta send him a goddamn bill.
Lurleen
You are one person and you use central air? Really? Cool the air of the room you are in. I have an actual portable air conditioner. It stays in the living room. I haven’t even set it up yet, and I’m here in Texas. Window unit for the bedroom goes on at about 9 p.m. and the rest of the house is off. My electricity provider says I am using less and less electricity — my monthly balanced bill is $70 and has gone down $30 since I got the portable.
somethingblue
According to the premium blog ad next to this post, the solution is free solar panels and an imperfectly clad chick in a cowboy hat.
You can decide for yourself whether you want cheetos with that.
mr. whipple
Can she cook?
cbear
@mr. whipple: I dunno, but she’s smoking hot when she’s all dressed up.
Corner Stone
Wait, almost 40 comments and no one has even obliquely remarked on the fact that Cole says his house is “fabulous” ?
feebog
How about you move the office outdoors for the summer.
JGabriel
@WereBear:
Pretty much. Alligators and dolphins are muy relieved.
.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
I’ve seen pictures. It is. To. Die. For.
Captain Goto
@Just Some Fuckhead: Now, where am I supposed to put down this internet?
…If you don’t mind: this thing is getting heavy.
mr. whipple
@cbear:
Not good enough. I already got that with my pot-bellied pig.
I want a partner with skills.
Southern Beale
Don’t know what your budget is but we got a Daiken ductless unit which are very energy efficient and used all over Europe and Central America.
Lurleen
@Corner Stone: It’s hard de-programming from Republican.
Central air is useless to a person living alone. If you can — and your computer(s) can tolerate 70 to 75 degrees, you could even go with a fan that circulates water, as long as you have two open windows. It hasn’t been hot enough for me to get to this yet.
OT — The power went out here right before the end of Survivor. Does anyone know what happened?
Southern Beale
Oh and you can see the Daiken on the wall in the background of my adorable dancing dog video, if you want to know what one looks like.
And as a bonus you get to watch a video of an adorable dancing dog.
:-)
Anne Laurie
During the ‘hot afternoons, cool night’ months, a $20 box fan with reversible controls, hung in the window frame on a $3 ‘utility hook’, can blow hot air out or cool air in much more frugally than an a/c unit. You run the risk of getting a few flying insects at night, but that’s just free exercise for Tunch & the girls to stalk.
Everything I’ve read says a sized-for-the-room window unit is more efficient & much cheaper than the ‘portable’ boxes. Protip, if you don’t want to shut the office door & put up with the dogs scratching to be on the other side of it, hang a blanket or heavy throw across the doorway to trap the cool air & still let them come & go on their own.
arguingwithsignposts
@Lurleen:
Unless you rent and it’s included in the “all bills paid.”
danimal
OT. Grifter alert.
I’m guessing he’s not running.
JGabriel
Re: evaporator coolers. I think the people who are recommending them are forgetting that John Cole lives in West By God Virginia.
The “By God” part comes from their propensity to remark during the summers, “By god, it’s fucking humid here.”
So those evaporator coolers, which don’t work so well in high humidity, aren’t likely to be very effective in WV.
Also, there’s some question as to the advisability of pumping moisture into a room, already humid, full of operating computer equipment.
.
Failure, Inc.
@TBogg: Thanks to the increasing nastiness of our annual “Mexican Monsoonal moisture” event, coupled with summertime evaporation from lawn irrigation (a huge summertime problem in Phoenix and Vegas as well) I now find myself having to run a portable air conditioner a few weeks a year, something that would have been literally unthinkable growing up here in the 1970s. The tards can “debate” climate change all they want. For me, that argument was over in 2006, the day I had to buy an air conditioner because it was almost a hundred degrees and raining.
It’s not like I live out in Santee or anything either. I live less than a mile from the coast.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: There’s nothing better than sleeping to a fan, especially one in the window. As long as it can turn itself off at 3AM.
Corner Stone
@Lurleen:
The storm system probably took out a transformer in your area.
cbear
@JGabriel:
WTF?
I thought you said the new law banned sex with animals? Now you’re telling me it includes reptiles and fish too?
Well shit, guess that means the Caiman and the Grouper gotta go to new homes too.
For Sale: 1 toothless Caiman, 1 very talented Grouper.
RossInDetroit
I don’t wanna hear about appliances. Blown water heater this morning. Hundreds of dollars down the drain. Half the basement out on the lawn drying out.
Bah. I’m going to climb up a tree, cut the soles off my shoes, and learn to play the flute.
Southern Beale
@Lurleen:
Grant voted to Redemption Island cuz Ashley got immunity.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Southern Beale:
cbear, surely it’s not against the law in Florida to enjoy a little pom dancing.
Failure, Inc.
Got this, by the way. Will do up to 400 square feet and adapts to virtually any kind of window. Not too bad on the electric bill, either.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear:
Sounds like there was actual petting going on at your zoo.
Murc
Nobody has mentioned lights yet, so I’m gonna mention lights.
If you haven’t already switched away from incandescents, switch away from incandescents. I did in my computer room, not because I’m environmentally friendly, but because they throw off SO MUCH heat. It’s the difference between using AC and not using AC.
Southern Beale
@RossInDetroit:
Oh well let me tell you about the on-demand unit I got. A Rennai. Saved TONS of money on gas and no worries about a repeat of your flood because it’s tankless.
BTW, John should know that energy efficient models of air conditioners and the like get nice tax rebates these days. At least, they will until the Republicans decide such things are nonsense and that free market fairy dust will help people buy new appliances.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
lol!
My sides.
RossInDetroit
@Southern Beale:
For a 2-person household we found that the warranty would run out before the payback period on the higher buy-in. We’d have to change the gas line, which jacks up the price.
I was thinking since I have the whole basement cleared we should change the 1958 Chrysler furnace as well.
Nah. I’ll just wait until it craps out in January when it’s 10 degrees out, then pay a fortune for a new one.
Gin & Tonic
If you want to stay cool, I recommend a tall gin and tonic.
You’re welcome.
cbear
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well, there goes the
neighborhoodmenagerie.mikefromArlington
A big fan blowing in the cool air.
cbear
@mr. whipple:
What are you, some kinda Californian? You people.
Just Some Fuckhead
@cbear:
It’s a moral cesspool out there. Watch out for the earthquake, perverts.
Gin & Tonic
@RossInDetroit: Having spent a small fortune last fall replacing a 50-year-old oil-fired hot water boiler, I can say that it is far better to do it on your own schedule as opposed to waiting for it to give out, which it is likely to do not only when it’s 10 degrees, but on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday.
Lurleen
@Anne Laurie: The ‘portable’ air conditioners work really well — especially if you don’t want to cool your whole house, but you have a large room to cool that a window unit won’t do the job for.
@JGabriel: That’s what they say, of course, but evaporator coolers work well as long as you have a path for the cool air to travel through. I’ve enjoyed mine, even in the humidity of Houston.
@Corner Stone: FU and thanks for playing.
@Southern Beale: Thanks for the info and for not being an asshat.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I love you.
Lurleen
@Just Some Fuckhead: If a storm is a sprinkle of rain, then yeah sure.
JR in WV
I vote for the ductless AC unit made in Europe.
I test drove a Buick today, great driving car made in Germany by Opel. Shame they will turn it into an American boat next year or two…
RossInDetroit
@Gin & Tonic:
Furnace guy sez of the ’58 Chrysler unit “I can fix this forever. Don’t replace it until the exchanger rusts out”.
Translation: call me when you’re desperate and we’ll talk price.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you how enjoyable the “gemima fuckhead” comment was. Of course, I think you and I are the only ones who understand the “drinks everything out of a straw” reference.
jl
It was established beyond reasonable doubt on this very blog that Tunch got inside the Cole computers and has hijacked the blog. That is why they run hot. Remove Tunch and see what happens.
Geez, Cole doesn’t read his own blog, does he?
BethanyAnne
One more vote for a portable / window unit. I’d pay attention to energy rating, and prolly look for a Haier – decent brand.
amk
Quit blogging. Get out of the house/office. Get a life.
Gin & Tonic
@RossInDetroit: When the heat exchanger rusts out your negotiating position will not be optimal. You will also have dirty water all over the basement floor again.
RossInDetroit
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s air/air like most in MI, but yeah, a very cold person holds a weak hand in negotiating with the furnace man. I spent 4 hours in Dec. putting in a new thermocouple and it got real cold real fast.
Gin & Tonic
@RossInDetroit: Right. Plus, oddly enough, they are far busier in winter. “Can you do it this month?” sounds a lot less expensive than “Can you please get over here NOW?” when you know that they’re spending most of this month sitting on their deck drinking beer.
RossInDetroit
@Gin & Tonic:
Before AC Season kicks off for real. yeah, I better start shopping.
Poopyman
Seems like the simplest fix would be to dangle the servers out the window in the breeze. Processors stay cool, room stays cool. What could be easier?
Just don’t dangle them by a USB cable. And don’t ask how I know this.
John Costello
I can’t believe none of the physicists on this blog pointed out that a more efficient cooling system for your PC is a more efficient heater of the environment outside of your PC i.e., your room.
I vote for a box fan improving circulation throughout your house (a $20 solution), and then the window AC unit, if it has a good efficiency rating. Definitely don’t run your central air.
Roger Moore
@cbear:
I hear Mickey Kaus is in the market.
Lurleen
One more time with feeling”
@Anne Laurie: The ‘portable’ air conditioners work really well—especially if you don’t want to cool your whole house, but you have a large room to cool that a window unit won’t do the job for.
@JGabriel: That’s what they say, of course, but evaporator coolers work well as long as you have a path for the cool air to travel through. I’ve enjoyed mine, even in the humidity of Houston.
@Corner Stone: FU and thanks for playing.
@Southern Beale: Thanks for the info and for not being an asshat.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Lurleen:
Grant was blindsided and pissed. As he walked behind them he mumbled something that ended with “you”. Then when his torch was extinguished, he looked at them menacingly and said he’d be coming back.
Ed Drone
@WereBear:
And will be again if the law gets overturned by the courts.
Ed
fasteddie9318
While we’re on the subject of appliances, hot water heaters: tank or tankless? I’d like to go tankless but my wife is hesitant.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Corner Stone: LOL. Got me on that one. Never saw it coming. And it’s the correct answer, too!!
Joe Buck
If you have enough computer equipment to make a room hot, and some of it is old, you might quickly save so much on electricity as to make it well worth replacing the oldest bits (particularly giant ancient CRTs, maybe old computers as well). My company’s IT people have demonstrated that over the life of a machine, you pay a good bit more for the electricity and the A/C than for the machine itself, so if you can swap out a machine for one that burns half the power, it can be a good move.
Ed Drone
I’m about to go out and buy three window units, for three rooms upstairs. The central AC for upstairs (we have two units, since with hot water heat, there were no ducts to piggy-back onto). Put in in 1993, it finally bit the dust, and we were turned down for financing (being considerably cash-poor these days).
So it’s window units, and probably lower ‘lectric bills, without the convenience of one thermostat ruling them all. I’ll probably need to get two sizes — one pair of windows is but 18″ wide, and the other two are 22″. I’ll have to struggle with installation (the struggle is to get the path to the windows — and the sills — clear enough to actually do the work. *
Ed
* We may have told you a lot about ourselves, but we never said we were tidy.
bago
So I doubt you are running at datacenter levels of power draw, but nonetheless, realize that the heat is generated by a clock cycle dumping the electrical energy into the silicon substrate at the end of the clock cycle, at the rate of 2-3 billion times a second. So there’s that.
HVAC Mike
You need what is called a “mini-split”, which has nothing to do with midgets, you filthy bastards.
You get a unit that goes outside, a heat pump, and an evaporator unit in your ‘puter room. It will cool when you need it to, and heat when it’s cold. Turn it off
when you need neither. Or – you can do like my Oz friends; you get used to un-conditioned spaces and you’re much happier outside when it’s hot, because you acclimate to the conditions.
Wimp.
:-)
cbear
test 1
tommy
dampers… decrease the input to the other rooms so more air is blown into your office. If in a house, each room should have its own damper near the central air unit, or you may have to decrease the output by adjusting the dampers on the air vent itself.
Leadpipe
Look into a split system wall hung unit. They are quiet efficient and they won’t block you window view.
suzanne
No evaporative cooling. It won’t work in your portion of the country for much of the year and it’s not good for the puters.
Get a fan. Turn the puters off when not using them. Get extra insulation on your house and/or triple-pane windows and run a window unit.
hamletta
@somethingblue:
That young lady forgot to put her pants on. How embarrassing!
2liberal
@John Costello:
PCs don’t have cooling systems. They have Fans which move the heat to the room
For those who haven’t taken thermodynamics: you can’t destroy heat, you can only move it. So the heat of a PC has to move somewhere which means it heats up the room.
2liberal
@somethingblue:
Ok, you got me. I turned off the ad blocking HOSTS file. So where is the chick with the cowboy hat?
kdaug
Or you could just close all the vents in the other rooms halfway and leave the one in the computer room open…
greylocks
If you have a suitable window, a conventional window-shaker will be a lot cheaper, less intrusive and more attractive than a portable.
The problem with portables, aside from the cost, is that you still need some way to vent them outdoors. Just like a clothes dryer, the heat has to go somewhere. They need at least one if not two four-inch holes somewhere – in a window or a wall. You can get window panel inserts. But you still have to run the duct(s) from the unit to the hole(s) in your wall or windows. Really ugly. And it’s one more thing for you to trip over and break another body part. Also, every portable I’ve ever been around sounded like a freight train in the room.
So I really think you should look into getting a window-rattler unless there is some problem with that (be sure there isn’t a local ordinance or HOA rule against them).
If money is not a concern, consider investing in a mini-split system. Very expensive (typically $1200-$2000 installed) but much quieter, more attractive, less intrusive, and more energy-efficient than a window-shaker or portable. If you spend all day at your desk, it may be worth the investment just to not have to listen to a window unit all day. Mini-splits are not as quiet as central air, because the mini’s air handler is in the same room as you. However, the condenser is outdoors rather than in the unit itself as it would be in a window-shaker or portable, and the condenser is the really loud part.
Any of these should use far less electricity than running the central air.
Also, to make sure you get a properly-sized unit, use this calculator. Treat it as a kitchen. Don’t get a bigger unit than you need.
Jon H
@Lurleen: ” The ‘portable’ air conditioners work really well”
But they’re loud. After all, with a window air conditioner at least part of the mechanism is outside the room so at least some of the noise stays outside, but with a portable, the whole thing is inside the room.
I had one for a few years, and it cooled fairly well, but the noise was tiresome.
Jon H
Two advantages of ceiling fans:
1) They’re quiet. The blades are big, thus the fan can push lots of air without spinning very fast.
2) They have a switch to change the direction they turn. During the winter, you can have it push warm air down from the ceiling, and in the summer it can pull cool air up from the floor.
Incidentally, last time I was at IKEA I noticed they had two HUGE ceiling fans in the warehouse area where you grab the boxed items you want. Like 10′ or more in diameter with about eight foils. The brand name was “BIG ASS FANS”
John Weiss
John,
Get yourself a mini-split for that room. Adding a ceiling fan is a pretty good idea as well.
LongHairedWeirdo
If every room except the office is comfortably cool, if you blow the hot air out, it should suck in cool air from the rest of the house, and cool the office. Obviously, this is something you want running at low power before you’re using the office… it takes a lot of cooler air flow to cool down the surfaces in the room.
Yutsano
@handy:
Mmm…double entendre.
pattonbt
@cbear: This offer just might bring myiq2xu back to the site.
DPirate
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes. If it’s a 2-story house, instal a vent in the ceiling with a fan.
ant
lmfao.
just turn on the ac cole.
then ur done.
wus all the fuss about?
presquevu
Eat foods with cool energy. Those Chinese aloe drinks and watermelon come to mind.
A negative ion generator will make it feel cooler.
Avoid having the heat from your computer directed at your feet by your computer desk.
Corner Stone
Damn. Who would’ve guessed someone with the screen name “Lurleen” would have no sense of humor?
What number is your DKos ID?
dan
Get a fan or turn some shit off.
dan
Get a fan or turn some shit off.
Barry
@Just Some Fuckhead:
“Get a box fan, blow out the hot air.”
Seconded.
KEN
Since every permutation has been discussed above, why not buy a slightly used NASCAR cool suit to wear while blogging.
mattski
I had the same problem with my finished attic/office
Have you tried just running the house fan? aka on your thermostat that says heat-off-cool, should have another fan switch that says auto-on. ‘auto’ runs the fan whenever the there is a call for heating or cooling. ‘on’ runs the fan 24-7. running a fan is super cheap, running a compressor for the ac is expensive.
Now if you have a fancy house you can close some supply registers (where the air comes out of the wall/ceiling) and close the return register in the office. This will push cool air into the office through the register and pull the hot air out through the door.
Windows can be open or shut for this depending on how you like it.
also remember to change the filter on your AC once a year
mattski
two days and two intelligent posts by me. I’m leaving on a high note and taking the rest of the year of from posting.
capt
Yo:
http://www.compactappliance.com/Koldfront-Ultracool-8000-BTU-Portable-Air-Conditioner-PAC801W/PAC801W,default,pd.html?cgid=Air_Quality-Portable_Air_Conditioners-Residential_Units
Uses under 1000 watts (less than a blow dryer for the hair)
I use one for spot cooling on our dog days.
:)
Paul in KY
@Lurleen: Grant went to Redemption Island.
Rob has this one sewn up if he can get to end with Phillip & Natalie.
patrick
if the room has a window, use a window fan:
http://www.amazon.com/Holmes-Twin-Window-Fan-HAWF2021-U/dp/B00008XET9/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1305210402&sr=8-2
had something like this in our dorm room at college. worked very well with one fan pulling in, the other pushing out.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead: He’s an idiot. He has to know Rob doesn’t want him at the end, because he does have a case to make for the money.
PopeRatzy
My office is in the upstairs on the southern face of the house in sunny California. I used to have to run the A/C for the whole of the upstairs just so I could work in the office during the afternoon. I put in a small room A/C in the office and shut down the A/C for the rest of the upstairs during the day. In tracking the utility bill it cut my monthly electric by around $30 average during the summer months.
One VERY important thing, if it is a window unit do not leave it in place during the cooler months.
replicnt6
@2liberal:
Hmmm, you’ve apparently got an unusual definition of “cooling system”. Such that there are no “cooling systems”. cf. your comment about just moving heat around. An A/C unit just makes cool inside by making hot outside, i.e. moving the heat outside.
2liberal
@replicnt6:
about the AC unit, that is exactly the point i was trying to make.
in context, the suggestion was that john install some gizmo in his computer that would make the heat disappear, not warming up the room. The only way to do that with an AC unit is to have some sort of outside connection , some sort of physical pipe from his computer to the outside world. To me an active cooling system with outside components means something much different from a fan that moves air around. YMMV.