We have to buy a window unit for our house. We have Central AC but it’s not keeping up and we can’t afford to upsize it right now. So until then I’m researching which window units to buy. Any advice or anything to cut through all the marketing spam and AI copy that I have to wade thru?
Call a service tech to look at your central. If it’s not keeping up then it might be cheaper to fix the issues with it over buying a window unit and paying the electricity to run it.
Central Units are typically much more powerful and therefore need to run less, and if it’s something simple like it need to have the condenser cleaned out or the refrigerant recharged the cost to just get it done is much less than the cost of window units plus electricity plus your time to install and remove them
This isn’t actually necessarily true if you just need specific cooling.
If for instance, you just care about cooling your bedroom for sleeping, then it can be more efficient to install a window unit in just that room and let the rest of your house be warmer. A mini-split would be more efficient than a window unit for that role, but they’re also a lot more expensive and permanent.
Yeah for new installs but service for the existing unit might be like $200 for a cleaning and it’s certainly going to be cheaper to run in the long run
Window units are built to fail, are mold prone, use an excessive amount of electricity comparatively (even the newer inverter ones) and a higher risk of injuring a person or damaging the building. Also their smart features often entice people to install apps that track you to sell to advertisers. So not only are you buying an inferior product but they’re also capitalizing of spying on you.
(tl/dr: fuck Frigidaire lol)
No, it’s not necessarily.
From an electricity usage standpoint, it’s cheaper to inefficiently cool one room than it is to efficiently cool a whole house.
Cleaning it also may solve nothing, it’s $200 on a chance of it solving the problem. If cleanliness wasn’t the issue, then you just wasted $200. On the flip side, you can find a used window AC for $200 easily, or buy a new one for $400 and then sell it when you’re done with it and get $200 back, and it is guaranteed to solve your problem assuming you’re concerned with a specific room.