Tempted to buy an air conditioner this year?

I echo that. Mine was around £300 and is supposed to be one of the more powerful ones. It fails to cool a bedroom and might have contributed to the failure of a double glazed window, used for the exit pipe. It is noisy and the cold air from the outlet simply disappears into the room and vanishes. It also consumes quite a lot of electricity to make the refrigerant work and the fan blow. It is a bulky waste of money! I am tempted to buy one of those ice-cubey things for around £40. The two ice blocks go in the freezer and the fan is USB powered. It may not cool much, but it might cool a small space.

We also have a portable unit that was acquired second-hand. The exhaust pipe is not long enough to be of much use as the unit has to sit next to the window instead of well inside the room. We have only used it a few times later in the evening when the heat has become unbearable, and it might reduce the temperature 1˚ after about an hour if we can put up with the noise. We also need to block the window with a dust-sheet otherwise we swap heat for bugs. Although it doesn’t seem to do much, if you go outside and feel the expelled air, it is ‘HOT’.

The fans are doing a good job of moving air around at the moment and make you feel a bit cooler.

The fact that the outlet is hot suggests that the unit is working, but you will be pulling in warm air from the rest of the house and what has been absorbed by the structure. I would not have offered to help with an outdoor event tomorrow, and will be glad to get home if it is as hot as has been predicted. I find an extra shower is refreshing in hot weather.

The hot outlet also puts heat back into the room.

To help keep cool, you could have a bottle of water with a fine spray plus a piece of cardboard for a fan.🤓

Maybe those who have to wear a collar, tie and suit should rebel. 🙂

I have been asking the men here why they don’t make a more of an effort and wear a tie and suit. 😉

Something about being cool not to wear them. 🙂

You won’t need a blazer tomorrow – the day will fulfil that role.

Jackets are useful – they have pockets to keep things in.

I never understood the use of a tie other than as decoration – and there are some very fine ties of which I have a few. But they can look ridiculous when they are so long they descend well below the top of the trousers. Cravats are largely out of fashion which is a shame, I think they look good, as do bow ties on some people.

In business I think looking smart is a sign of respect to the people you deal with. Turning up in sloppy clothes for a meeting or a visit to a client is, I suggest, impolite at the least. But maybe I’m old fashioned.

Wearing evening dress for an “occasion” is rather nice – feeling well turned out can add to the enjoyment.

So I support Abby’s sentiment in the appropriate situations.

Trouble is, by definition, it doesn’t cool it just blows. Agreed it’s a good kind of blow, but it should be at £300 plus. What effect does it have on your room? I don’t question your recommendation, I’m just surprised by it.

A fan does not directly cool but it increases the rate of evaporative cooling due to loss of sweat, in conjunction with a higher blood flow to the skin.

A gentle breeze – whether natural or from a fan – is pleasant in warm weather. The amount of power used by a fan is much smaller than any type of air conditioner, so there is an environmental benefit.

🙂 It has been suggested that those that buy expensive Dyson vacs are suckers. At least they give a five year guarantee on the mains-powered ones.

I’m not sure recommending, as Which?, a £300 fan is really on. Although it will go some way to adding to James Dyson’s Lincolnshire estate and his overseas manufacturing investment. I’d suggest there are plenty of fans on the market at far lower cost.

Although not identical to the AM07 this Which? Review is for what seems a very similar product:
Dyson Hot and Cool AM09
Which goes on to summarise
”……….But it doesn’t excel across the board enough to earn our Best Buy recommendation – in fact, you can pick up a Best Buy electric heater for less than a tenth of the price.”

It’s a personal recommendation from George, Malcolm, and he is probably not too concerned about the performance as a heater right now. 🙂

I waited until it cooled down to do some work in the garden and it has cooled down so much I started to get goose bumples.

@gmartin, George, sorry of you were miffed! My comment was a little tongue in cheek as I regard many of Dyson’s products as over-priced, and I’m also disappointed that a knighted businessman chooses not to manufacture in this country – something I believe we desperately need.

We also have a useful tip in the locality but I have never seen any fans there. I think someone gets there early and cherry picks the junk for anything that could have a second life. It probably then, after a bit of cleaning, goes to a car boot sale of which there seem to be dozens this weekend.

Useful tip number 2 is to oil the bearings if a fan is noisy. I did this with a ceiling-mounted bathroom fan that sometimes emitted shrieking noises when switched on and it has worked quietly since.

Useful tip number 3 is to clean the fan blades if a fan is noisy. Then go to tip number 1 when you have been too heavy handed and broken the blade 😖

I don’t think the tip should let you take whole electrical items – elf’n safety?!? At least that is what the on-site shop said as they doesn’t sell electrical items.

But saying that….. one of our local tips put a lot of things aside……..

If something would otherwise be scrapped it does not matter if there is the odd casualty.

Our local recycling centre has a sign that indicates that usable items are sold but I don’t know whether this includes electrical goods.

That’s more or less what we used to do, John. But with four in the house (back then) the infernal heat production from washing machines, oven, cleaning, TV and so on unable to escape during the day, and with the need for opaque curtains in the West and South-facing aspects it became impossible to keep the temperatures below 85F, hence the need for air conditioning.

Another problem, is that our house is extremely well insulated, so with any heat wave at all, the heat built up and didn’t escape. Adding to that the fact that we live upstairs didn’t help (nowhere for the heat to rise) so it did really make the options limited.

It reached 29C yesterday outside, and we were basking inside at a comfortable 22C. Any inherent guilt soon dissolved in frequent glasses of iced lemonade.

For lots of existing property some form of air conditioning is a good idea, if not a necessity. Most houses were built during times when really hot days were a rarity, most people were out at work all day, and the general attitude was that you just had to put up with it. Sweating was not so socially unacceptable either.

Now we all have showers, refrigerators, cool boxes, fans, air conditioning units [even in our motor cars], and relaxed dress styles and cool fabrics, yet we can’t stop complaining when the mercury rises above 24 degrees. Bring back the kaftans and sandals of the 1960’s.

When I came home yesterday, the temperature had reached 24°C, so I opened windows and doors until late in the evening. At least round here the mini-heatwave seems to have ended and today is warm with a cool breeze.

They have the wind tower system at the Zion Canyon National Park visitor centre in Utah. It was incredible to walk from 30 degree plus heat into the visitor centre. Somehow there was a different quality to air as well. It wasn’t quite as drying as air conditioning can be.