What household item do you wish there was a trial/testing period for?

2 years ago by Cataphract to c/asklemmy

I know some companies offer 90-day returns etc, but what item would you think everyone would benefit from if it was an industry standard to have a test drive like new cars?

My nitpick would be microwaves. I have tried picking out what I thought was decent microwaves in the past but it's hard to know exactly how it functions without using it. For instance, my microwave has an express button (30 seconds) or a minute plus button. You can only use one of them, if you've hit the minute button the express button doesn't let you add 30 seconds while it's active and vice versa. Also the beeping, even if you hit the stop button and open the door when it gets to 0 seconds, it still goes through it's "I'm done" beeping which is loud and repetitive making you stop it at 1 second and still having to click cancel which makes noise. So what's your choice?

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yannic 13 points 2 years ago

HVAC systems.

When my wife and I we had to replace our forced air furnace and central air system in the late autumn due to carbon monoxide literally the evening before our son was to be born, I felt under pressure to get something in place.

I told them I needed a more powerful air conditioner for all the unique heat-generating equipment in my basement, especially since our old system had trouble keeping up. They said that the new unit was more than enough for the square footage. I reiterated again, that air conditioners don't cool square footage, they cool BTU's, and the average home doesn't have a grow op and server farm in the basement generating significant heat. Then, they decided to hit me with the old "I've been doing this for {x} decades" speech.

Needless to say, I've had to consolidate servers, stop indoor gardening, replace the bulbs in the house with those shitty blue-hued LED's that can't dim right (and dimmer switches to handle the change in load characteristics), take the weather into account when cooking indoors and clean both sets of A/C coils on a more frequent basis. The air conditioner still can't keep up and when we have a string of hot days, we can't always count on the cooler evenings to get the house back down to "room temperature".

Oh, and now our old chimney drips water into the basement.

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Fiivemacs -5 points 2 years ago

Without knowing the heat load calculation or what was installed it's obviously all guesses. But the fact that temps are easily reaching 40+ or 105+, no AC is going to transfer the heat from your house to the outdoors. It's basic science.

Air conditioners aren't actually cooling your house, but instead it's relocating heat. So if it's too hot outside, it won't do anything. heat transfer can only continue until the two objects (condenser outside and the ambient air) have reached thermal equilibrium and are at the same temperature. Once they balance out, it won't do anything.

Infact, getting MORE BTUs on your unit is actually a bad thing since it won't have time to dehumidify your house. This will lead to short cycling of the AC (it'll turn on and off a lot) and you never get cooling. The amount of homeowners that demanded bigger sizes units only to get pissed it's worse is astounding.

The indoor gardening also is TERRIBLE for air conditioners since your feeding so much moisture in the air.

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Analog 7 points 2 years ago

You should look into variable speed compressors and the temps at which refrigerants work. You’re correct on many points but misinformed on others.

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Fiivemacs -7 points 2 years ago

I know about inverter compressors, but they cannot defy the laws of thermo dynamics no matter how fast of slow they run. It's impossible. If it's too hot outside, the heat will not escape the condenser and will go right back inside rendering it useless and not cooling.

You will only see benefit with the inverter because it can slow down when it's not hot. If the compressor reaches 45degrees, and it's 40 degrees outside with the condenser in direct sun, you can't extracting much heat meaning it'll take forever to cool.

Refrigerant temps will make a difference, but they still have their limits too. All depends on what's being used. I assume OP was sold R410, low chance they were given the newer r32 or r454b replacements.

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StreetCash 8 points 2 years ago

I think you're missing something, there are many places that would be near unlivable if AC stopped working at 105f. I'm sure HVAC companies and engineers have found a way around cooling in 105f+

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Analog 1 point 2 years ago

You’re just flatly wrong, the spec page for the humdrum mini split I pulled up first has a max outdoor max ambient operating temp of 52.78c (127f)

My point in bringing up refrigerant temps was to get you to look into it. Heat exchangers are more effective than you believe. No one is trying to convince you that these units defy the laws of physics.

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