Thought we’ll start out the year with some tips for better home maintenance from the environmental perspective. Given below are the pointers that we came across in the site climatecrisis.org. Clearly it is prepared with the US homes in mind, but some points are quite on target for other countries as well.

1. Cleaning a dirty air filter on your air conditioner can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

2. Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

3. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes instead of using a dryer.

5. Even when turned off, things like hairdryers, cell phone chargers and televisions use energy. In fact, the energy used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!

6. You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid!

7. You can save 100 pounds of carbon dioxide per year if you use your dishwasher only when the load is full.

8. It takes 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide. So use recycled paper more.

9. Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce. So it is far better to use fresh food than the frozen ones.

10. If just 1% of car owners properly maintain their cars, nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide will be kept out of the atmosphere.
    

Psst.. Have a few more pointers with us. But saving that for another day.

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Hi Everyone. Sudarsan posted a nice comment on how installation of air conditioners. This post is just a recap of the same.

Installing AC

Window AC- Need to have a cut-out for the AC to be installed. Usually Flat builders provide a rectangular opening beneath a window to facilitate this. My advice is to plan on an opening as suggested by the Aircon manufacturer (AC away from the floor would not suck-in the dust near the floor, and more importantly cold air moves towards the floor, while hot air rises up, so having AC above the ground gives better cooling efficiency). Coming back to installation, the space around the AC at the opening, is closed with a plywood frame or alternate materials. Window AC’s need stabilizers depending on the tonnage. Installation expenses would be about Rs.300, plus carpentry/masonry related expenses towards the AC opening.

Split AC - While Split AC gives the flexibility to install at a convenient position in the room, Split AC sales comes with 5m Copper tube only, for additional ducting you would have to pay Rs.400-500/m of copper tube. Indoor units are wall mounted and at about 5-6 feet from the floor. The outdoor unit can be floor or wall mounted and the key efforts in the installation is to have good insulation for the copper piping between the Outdoor and Indoor units. Installation for each split unit ranges from Rs.1000 to Rs.1300.

Nowadays the Voltage stabilizers come as a part of the Split AC package itself, even otherwise stabilizers upto 5 KVA should cost in the range of Rs.1000 to Rs.1500 only.

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I wrote this over the weekend….it should be useful if you are planning on air-conditioning your home.

Air Conditioners (ACs) are available in two form-factors,

a. Room AC - This is the traditional AC, where the cost ranges from Rs.8,000 to Rs.35,000 depending on the brand, features and tonnage.    

Image Courtesy : alibaba.com

b. Split AC - Here the Cooling unit (condenser, coil+fan apparatus) are separated from the Room-unit (Blower & Exhaust), thus eliminating noise from the Cooling unit.  More importantly Split AC, allows you to install the AC at the place you require.  Also recent models have a good spacing between exhaust and blower allowing better cooling efficiency on the room.

 

Image Courtesy : germes-online.com

Having made up my mind on Split AC, I looked into Cooling capacity (measured in BTUs, or in simple language Tonnes), EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio), Fan speed, Filter mechanisms and Noise level. 

For an average Indian bedroom 0.75 Tonne to 1 Tonne should do, and for a hall 1.5 Tonne to 2 Tonnes are required.  For now we wanted to AC only 2 adjacent bedrooms and I was contemplating between,

a. Buying 2 Single-split systems of 1.5 Tonne each - Onida (Rs.24K, for Deco Flat model) & Samsung (Rs.24.5K for Turbo Compact model) which includes everything other than mounting brackets and installation.

b. Buying 1 Multi-split from Hitachi of 2.0 Tonne capacity (Atom2 at Rs.52,000)

 Though popular sales talk is to go for two 1.5 tonnes as it costs lesser than the 2 Tonne Multi-split and gives you the option of 1 unit working in case of machine failure, I opted for the Hitachi Multisplit for two reasons,

a. This system has a single compressor that can supply 2 Tonnes to one bedroom if the other bedroom is not used, this flexibility comes in very handy in Summer.  Also if you have a combo of a hall and a bedroom, its better to go for this system than having two 1.5T single splits.

b. Hitachi’s system comes with proven durability (5 years warranty and I somehow trust compressors Made in Japan than elsewhere) and has the best EER and lowest noise levels.

Anyway I would have considered inverter type air-conditioners (30-40% power savings) and a 5 split AC, as abroad.  But  since these systems are neither popular nor cost effective in India, had gone for Hitachi Atom2 for my bedrooms.

I have personally used so far - Carrier (5 split), General & Hitachi (room AC) and the experience has been very good so far, and hoping the same out of this Hitachi (2 split).

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