(no subject)

[darchildre]

After a lovely (if dentistry-dominated) four-day weekend wherein I did not have to work at my un-air conditioned library, I am now back. Everything is dreadful.

Here's the story: we have a portable air conditioning unit. It's one of the ones you can wheel around and has a hose that goes out the window*. We just hired a new head of Facilities for the library system, who recently came to tour all the branches and find out what we'd particularly want from him. We impressed upon him very strongly the fact that our branch is unacceptably hot, to the point that we've sometimes had to close early. He said he would look into a solution for us, and at least try to get us a second air conditioner. Which he did last Friday.

It doesn't work.

Or, rather, we can't use it. Because using both of them at the same time overloads the circuits in our building, shutting off all our lights and computers. Probably, we should have looked into that before trying to get a second unit. But we didn't, and we had such high hopes, which are now all dashed.

My manager is considering changing our open hours, so we open earlier in the day and close earlier in the afternoon. I am still voting for hibernating till October.







*We also have a variety of arguments about said airconditioning unit. I think we should close all the windows and doors when we have it on, in hopes that it will cool all the air without us trying to aircondition all of Kitsap. My manager thinks we should leave windows or doors open, "so the hot air has somewhere to go". And the coworker I work with the most is slightly claustrophobic and says she can't work without at least a little airflow. So.

Comments

[jenett]

I have a portable at home.

A single hose one exhausts the heat outside (through the window fixture), and pulls in (already somewhat cooled) air from the inside. A dual hose one pulls in air from outside and exhausts it through a separate hose outside. Dual are supposed to be better at cooling, but in my case, people sometimes smoke right outside my window, and I didn't want to bring that air in.

Either way, the windows should be closed, and they should have a thing that blocks up the open window space where the hose goes out. (Mine came with a plastic thing that fits into the window, but like with other AC units, you can bodge something with cardboard/plastic sheeting/etc.) Basically, you don't want to let the cold air out, or bring in more hot outside air than you have to.

I also want airflow, so my solution is to have a sturdy fan blowing on me, so I get the benefits of the air. Bonus is that if you get one of the ones designed for moving air in the entire room, it can drop the effective temperature several degrees. (at home, I usually have the AC set on 78 when I'm home, and fans bring it down to feeling more like 72ish pretty reliably.)

Mine had instructions that were Very Clear about needing to be the only thing on its circuit (and it's sized for a bedroom, not a larger space: the larger ones draw more power, obviously.) But if you have multiple spaces that are small, you might manage something with smaller units.

[out_there]

If it has a hose that goes out the window, that's where it's expelling the hot air. We have a portable unit for summer and closing up areas is vital (sometimes, closing up room doors too because I'd rather have one cool space than a house of not-exactly-scorching.