a year ago by ๐ฏ๐๐ก ๐๐๐ฆ๐ฌ๐ค๐ข to c/microblogmemes
They're also monstrously inefficient compared to mini splits even before you account for leaving a giant uninsulated hole in your wall with free movement of air between the inside and the outside.
I laugh every time I see one of these shoved in right below a brand new quadruple pane low-e argon filled latest ultra efficiency mega R value vinyl window. Yeah, the window is not where your air leak is, bro.
There shouldn't be free movement of air with one of these. That defeats the whole purpose of it. If there's actually airflow across, someone fucked up the installation.
Though, yeah, it's not the most efficient setup. The only thing worse is a portable ac with a single vent hose.
Most of the PTAC units I've looked at in hotel rooms have had daylight visible right through them. And I can tell you from personal experience that the GE ZoneLine machines don't even have the hot and cold sides insulated from each other, nor the outside world. There's just a poxy plastic partition behind the blower wheel that's got all holes in it for mounting various components, and since this slides out with the chassis this doesn't seal against the inside of the sleeve in any way and usually leaves about a 1/4" gap around the top and sides. Maybe there's some kind of boundary formed by air pressure when the thing is running, but when it's off it absolutely allows outside air into the room without much hindrance. That's before you get into fitment of whatever current unit is installed in the old-ass sleeve in the wall.
Even your $99 Walmart window unit has a big polystyrene block insulating the evaporator side from the condenser side (and thus also the outside).
They also look huge, in Europe the standard is to have an outside unit and an inside unit.
That's the standard in North America as well for single family homes or even condo buildings where they might put the condenser on the balcony or use a heat pump with a central loop.
I would guess these are popular in New York because they have many many old buildings with central heat and it's easier to punch a hole in the wall then hang somethings off the building 8 floors up. Also easier to work on the unit.
If only they werenโt so goddamn noisy.
So true. Hotels, you have one job: provide somewhere for me to sleep. That means make an attempt at soundproofing. Ah well.
They're noisy because they are inefficient.
It's probably both noisy and inefficient if it's made really cheap, but is that causation true?
But still more efficient than any ceiling fan
Not really comparable since ACs change the air temperature, while fans just move air.
I don't know how you measure efficiency but if you measure the amount of energy required for each degree of apparent temperature dropped then a fan is way way more efficient.
And so energy inefficient.
Eh.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Echo_Base
The Echo Base was the facility established by the Rebel Alliance on the frigid planet of Hoth
The interior of Echo Base extended seven levels below the surface, with the lower levels for barracks, rec rooms, maintenance hangars and fuel stores.
Yeah but they probably had heat down there.
So.
The pedantry dies by the fires of warmed lower levels.
Just like when your on a tunnel tens of feet on the Earth
I haven't seen that but I believe you. Can you not just get an extra card from the front desk, or do they have it further enshittified in some way?
I've been in hotels where it's just detecting that the slot is filled the card doesn't matter. So you just use the cardboard sleeve the card came in.
Also been in newer ones that have RFID cards though that are harder but not impossible to spoof
Oh really? I can't say I've come across the RFID styleโbasically every hotel I've stayed in over the past few years still happily takes my supermarket loyalty card in the power switch thing
How do you go about the spoofing of those and is it anything simpler than just creating a duplicate card?
Yeah you'd need cheap RFID blanks and a reader/writer. I do it with my phone easily enough. Just read the hotel card, copy, write to new card
Eh, if you're leaving your ac on all day when you're out, that's quite a waste. Card operation helps avoid accidentally leaving ac and lights on.
Air conditioners are heat pumps.
Exactly. Itโs an energy conservation measure
Any card works though, you can probably buy blank ones for this purpose.
A library/gym membership card or supermarket points card will work nicely. Iโve yet to find a hotel that takes electricity conservation so seriously to install card switches with RFID readers.
Newer versions of these can have par levels set for the temps and I donโt know who thinks 74f is a comfortable room temp, but noโฆ it is not.
Fortunately, internet legends went on to explain how to put these into service mode, thereby defeating their laughable levels. Just gotta remember to put it back to their mode when youโre checking out.
But, yeah, these things fkn crank coldness. And the electric bill. And the environment.
and see if they really want to waste their time with collections
It would be the collections agency who's time would be spent in court, not the hotel's. And collection agencies are in the business of collecting debt, so I don't think they would see it as a waste of time.
"Guy before me did it." Case closed. Housekeeping ain't checking shit. I was in Savannah and we got the maintenance guy to give us the unlocked remote for the TV, because nobody gives a fuck. You gotta remember, it's a bunch of shlubs like us making shit money doing a ton of work. If they walk in and the room is ice cold, they're putting the thermostat on whatever and walking away.
Good luck with that. Collection agencies don't care a whit how valid the debt is. They just care about how much they have to inconvenience you before you'll pay them to go away.
Afaik when talking about computers you can be charged by acessing some thing (a site or a feature) that you know you are not supposed to. The same logic may apply here. If you got into an hotel, the unit was lockedand you used some trick to get it to do what you want, it could be illegal. They do not need a sign
OK, but my point was that the hotel will have washed their hands of your debt by the time it's at a collections agency. How much time does it take you to dispute a collection note on your credit report? I'd guess it takes less time to take the AC unit out of service mode before you check out.
Yeah seriously, that's a comfortable sleeping temp when you can snuggle under the blankets to stay warm, but way too cold for daytime use. I'd be pissed if my hotel kept turning down the temperature for no good reason.
I once considered moving from Seattoe to Bremerton, WA to take advantage of the much cheaper real estate. In attempt to get a feel for the daily commute, I decided to stay at a Super 8 in Bremerton for a week. 5 minutes into that experiment, I flicked on the AC unit that looks just like this one and it reeked of cat pee.
I did not move to Bremerton.
In that Super 8s probably rarely see cats who enjoy urinating on electrical equipment (although I'm sure that's happened nonzero number of times), it's probably a ton of condensed meth. When it's in secondhand form, exhaled or wasted, it's hydroscopic and instantly mixes with the room humidity, which is then processed by the A/C coils, where it accumulates.
Possibly the room was actually used to manufacture meth. I mean, I used to manage REO properties on Bremerton, and I definitely cleaned up the remains of a few meth labs.
But maybe Mr Fluffy did go to urinetown on it, who knows. Bremerton.
It was Bremerton, it was most likely meth.
You just vastly improved a family story that we've told numerous times over the years. Thank you for sharing your meth-related knowledge.
Also, I think this hotel was across the street from a house that exploded the previous year, so yeah. Bremerton.
You judge a city by their Super 8?
That's like judging a city based on its Arby's.
I could fuck up some Arby's right now. Never in my life have I wanted to be at a super 8.
Cold rooms have improved my sleep and made my life better.
Spike?
I haven't gone on a vaction where I needed a hotel in a LONG time, but yes. the Ac units in every hotel room I've ever been in are pretty baws
I hope you'll think about not using vacation rentals like airbnb. I obviously have no clue what you actually do on vacation.
They're so destructive to local communities. Homes are for living, not some entrepreneurs dickbags financial instrument.
This is true but I think it's worth noting that the most impactful and worst aspects of AirBnB and its ilk are from investors buying old apartment buildings and renting them out like hotels, while dodging all the living standards and financial regulations of actual hotels. If they get away with this it absolutely wrecks the local low-income housing market.
Private homeowners renting out rooms in their houses, or even renting out their whole house, for vacationers are not really the problem.
I hope youโll think about not using vacation rentals like airbnb.
I'll never use Airbnb or anything like it.
I obviously have no clue what you actually do on vacation.
Camping, sometimes I pull my 5th wheel with my truck, but usually when I go on vacation I camp in my huge tents
May you be blessed with the convenience of Airbnb neighbors.
You sound like the type to just leave your shopping cart out in the middle of the parking lot.
Second time I've seen this meme... Never experienced it. They always sucked compared to even cheap window units. Half the time barely able to push below 22*. Granted I spent a lot of time as a kid on summer break locked up in a room with an 80s high end window unit that could get the room to 10* on a 25+* day.
I think itโs down to lack of maintenance. Either thereโs a refrigerant leak, or the condenser side is clogged. Most budget hotels donโt have the best maintenance.
I've worked at hotels. People still figure out how to complain about these things.
Used to have an office that was an addition to the building, with no room to connect it to the main HVAC. I had one of these to myself. The window on my office door fogged up frequently because I set the thing to give-visitors-frostbite-cold.
Amana Distinction PTAC Air Conditioner or something like it
I got it once I looked up what a Hoth is.
Harrow-on-the-Hill station?
Edit: Oh shit, I just now understood the name of BadLip's Hostiles on the Hill song
Holy crap I stayed at a place In Portland last year that had this exact model. Amazingly it worked.
I will never understand people who WANT to be cold. I'd rather be a sweatball than a little chilly. When I see one of these it usually get immediately turned off, because yeah, they do some fucking work.
edit: Apparently people who like to be cold are really sensitive about not being understood. ๐
Trade ya. My feet and hands will start turning to ice in a room below 70F.
I'm the same. Usually still in a blanket even in the 70s.
Calculates weird units to celsius...
What the f-
Okay. I tend to, in winter, live in ~60f. When temperature hits and stays at 70, I am moving onto the floor (ground level so cellar cools down the floors a bit)
Edit: Although I just got reminded about a coworker I knew that in winter, where we had around 5f outside, cranked his home heat to 82f. Straight up horror story for me xD
iirc people believe that cold environment warm insulated blanket promotes better sleeping.
Yeah but straight up I'm not getting out of bed in the morning in those temperatures
Maybe it's Placebo but I definitely get much better quality of sleep in the winter time. I keep my room very cold and I have some nice big heavy blankets to keep me warm in the bed. And winter is by far the time of year that I regularly wake up feeling refreshed and not groggy
Your opinion is wrong! Screw you for sharing it.
I'm going to make 10 new accounts just to downvote you, you heat lover.
I'd rather the room be slightly colder than I want than warmer because I can put on a jumper, but the number of downvotes on you sharing your opinion is insane haha
Here's an updoot to even it out a little, even though YOU'RE SO WRONG
"Doesnโt matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world, 'No, you move'."
You people who like the cold are WRONG and global warming is gonna take care of your bullshit in a couple hundred years! ๐
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Fuck PTACs, and the developers who install them.
All over NYC, Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City, you see fucking 1.2 million dollar condos or $5000/mo "luxury apartments" with these fuckers in every room.
It's a giant hole in the wall, you literally can see outside if you take the plastic cover off to change/clean the filter.
They're window units that have a dedicated window.
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