Do Air Conditioners Love Shade?
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- Опубликовано: 8 дек 2023
- Is your air conditioner better off being in the shade or does it really not mind roasting in the sun all day? There's a lot of debate on whether putting an air conditioner in a shady spot makes any difference in efficiency and electricity consumption or not. I decided to dig into this and see for myself what the truth really is. It seems like the professionals tend to agree that shade makes no difference at all whereas homeowners that tried it both ways claim that having the AC in the shade actually makes the unit run less and cool down the house a little faster. Which in turn lowers the electric bill as well. In my opinion, there is no hard evidence to support either side but personally I side with those homeowners and agree that putting your air conditioner in the shade if possible is a good idea. Especially if you live in a hot climate. At the very least you get to be in the shade while working on it if it ever breaks down.
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In Phoenix AZ where the heat directly on the unit is so hot you can’t touch it - the shade absolutely matters.
Shade is the only way to go!
About 30 years or so ago I bought an A/C unit that I self-installed from a guy I knew that owned an HVAC company. He told me that he had a hose that would drip water on his unit to help cool the condenser. While I would never personally do that they now sell misters for that same purpose. You can find videos on RUclips if you're interested.
Another no- nonsense video , keep em comin’ Jay. Stay well my friend .👍
Thank you sir! Glad you liked the video. 🙂 Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!
Good thoughts. Thank you for sharing. Heat is our major concern in the south. Direct sunlight / heat destroys over time. No matter what surface.
Shade matters 100%
Where I live, ambient can hit 50.c during a heat wave. ACs won't work in direct sun.
i planted a holly tree to shade the ac units. direct sun has to cause increased load. may not be a lot, but even a little helps.
I only agree! Shade from a tree is a great option. 👍👍
My house faces South so my a/c is on North or rear side. I put it under the deck and there is about 6 feet of clearance above it. I did that to shade and protect it from possible hail damage. Great video Jay.
I say that was a great choice! Good placement. Glad you liked the video, thank you for stopping by!
Finally some logic ! It makes total sense .
The way to really test this would be two identical tract houses, and somehow set the temps exactly the same
Yup.. Would be a little challenging to do 😅
The actual condenser is inside a shell which blocks all the sunlight, and you have a quite large volume of air constantly circulating - so the impact of direct sunlight is probably much less drastic than you think. Also, because the heat is forcibly ejected from the coolant gas at the compression stage unlike in a watercooling radiator, so I don't think you would see much difference from the condenser being a little hotter. Not until you start to reach the maximum capacity of the condenser at least (which certainly could happen for units that are a bit undersized or during extreme weather). All in all I would expect to see a small difference in energy usage that would be difficult to detect outside of a controlled testing environment. In practial use the outside conditions have way too many constantly changing factors to do any meaningful comparison testing. Im sure the manufacturers have done these types of test, but they are rarely keen to share their data (which is a shame). I'm sure there are HVAC enginershere with decades of experience that know these things much better than me though.
IMO there are lots of other good (probably more impactful) reasons to put you unit in a protected place or a covering though. Direct exposure to UV, wind and rain causes a lot of wear and tear. Coatings fail and things start to rust, dust and debris gets stuck in the grills decreasing efficiency ect. Condenser units may be made to withstand outside conditions, but they will certainly run better and for longer in a more protected space.
Interesting info - great video. In Palm Springs last week, and a lot of the homes had their hvac units elevate off the ground, attached to the side of the house. After seeing your video I understand why.
I live in Plant City, Florida and on Sunday the day before Memorial Day I temped the air coming out of my air vents and the were as high as 64-65 degrees at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. My wife's office which is the hottest room in the house was at 68 degrees. I did the same test with my temp gun before the sun came up and the air coming out was 58 degrees, so in my opinion the shade has to make some what of a difference.
Do you have ducts in a poorly insulated attic?
@@amiatroll6347 we had new insulation done about 4 years ago.
I built a sun panel. Peak summer when sun travels full west, unit is in shade.
After mowing yard, unit get blown clean and rinsed.
Yup, big help. Every millamp helps.
Units will last longer in the shade because it has a chance of cooling down between cycle's!
There's that too. I believe that keeping the unit cooler overall is better. More efficient and not as hard on the condenser.
Compressor is cooled down from the refrigerant, not the ambient air so it doesn't matter.
Love your presentation!!
You seem like the perfect person to do this test properly.
Thank you! Doing this test properly would be a bit difficult so I dont know if I will ever get around to trying it. 😅
@@WordofAdviceTV Oh I totally get you. But maybe start small, like if others have done 30 min tests, make yours last say 8 hours? Then if there is nothing clear in the data, you would not have wasted hundreds or more hours for no reason.
Thanks Jay and Merry Christmas
Thank you! Merry Christmas to you and yours as well!! God bless you!
One of the things that has helped me was to clean the fins really well on the outside as well as on the inside and coat them with the ceramic coating like Simix
Makes a lot of sense. Thx for filming this and sharing it with us. 👍👍👍👍👍
You bet! Thank you for stopping by for the new video. Have a Merry Christmas!!
@@WordofAdviceTV - Merry Christmas to you as well.
Very useful and if we stick around to the end... entertaining! lol .... Thanks for another 'cool' video.
Haha glad you enjoyed the video! Thank you for sticking around till the end 😉
FROM CHICAGO IM A #1 FOLLOWING YOUR VIDEOS GOD BLESS YOU EXELENT REASONS
God bless you my friend!! Thank you for watching from Chicago, glad you liked the video!
Learn to spell. And while your at it..read books and ask questions so that u don't live your whole life believing in an invisible Sky fairy
@@WordofAdviceTVgod is made up nonsense. Lose respect for your intelligence when u accept nonsense forced on you as a child
This was great, thank you!
Glad you liked it! Have a marvelous rest of the weekend my friend!
Another issue may be that the fan motor in a sunny location would get much hotter than the shade and not last as long. My compressor fan is scheduled to be replaced under warranty next week in Central Florida. My compressor is on the south side of the house and in the sun most of the day. My pool pump motor in on the same side of the house and I built a covering over the top 3' above it for shade. So far so good compared to previous pool motors that burned out or the bearings went bad prematurely.
Good info, I'd like to expand on one aspect though. People generally think in terms of average climate of a large area or State while ignoring the micro climates that exist within those areas. For example I live on Kauai where it doesn't get super duper hot but there are a few houses as well as a few select buildings in condominium properties that have their own heat sink going on to where if you walk 50-100 ft away to another building it feels entirely differently. It still becomes a necessary placement to put the unit in the hot areas of these buildings sometimes which has a high likelihood of affecting unit performance.
That's interesting! I did not consider that,. THank you for explaining, this is good to know.
"Very interesting" as Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh In. You covered all the bases as usual ! Inspired by your film , I checked the install manual for my Rheem AC. Shows clearances for air circulation , servicing clearances and some recommendations for install locations in corrosive environments ( e.g. near salt water). It does recommend elevating the unit above the base slab, if possible, as that can extend the life of the bottom pan and to not let lawn sprinklers spray on it. I suppose the outer shell of the unit does supply some temp. relief to the compressor ? What I really need is your learned advice on tank versus tankless water heaters. That might really generate some money differentials.
Glad to hear you found the video interesting! Thank you for sharing the further insights you got from your manual. I have little experience with tankless water heaters so I would need to do some homework before making any conclusions. I'll add this video to the list, thank you for the suggestion!
Agree, not enough time.
Good stuff!
Love it!
Hey 👋 good buddy I just found this video, good to see you Jay 👍. Well today is the one year anniversary 😢of my little Arnold death. A friend of mine on RUclips, Leo the beagle put Arnold pic on her community page for been a lot of nice heartfelt comments ♥️ but it's been a rough day I haven't went anywhere today its been a nice day I made a metal framed gazebo around Bigfoot and Arnold Graves and I welded it out of angle iron and put a heavy duty canvas cover and it's enclosed in to keep out leaves and rain. I've also been busy raking leaves 🍃 now there's a job I never liked doing but have to..hope everything is going well for you and your family I was thinking about you earlier wondering what my good ol buddy was up to..take care and God bless you and your family Jay much love to you all and thank you for being my friend I really appreciate you buddy..love you all hope you have a wonderful blessed Christmas 🎄.
Hey David!! Wow time flies.. It's already been a year since Arnold died. ☹ This time of the year will always be a time of remembrance for you but I'm happy to hear you have a community that supports you through this. The metal framed gazebo is a really cool idea, almost like a monument. It sounds like you have recovered a bit now too if you are tackling the leaves. I never liked raking leaves either so I can sympathize! We are doing good here, transitioning to a new church, meeting new people. Other than that, nothing really exciting to report. May the Lord bless you in the final days of this year in many ways! I'm glad I could be here for you, along with your other RUclips buddies. May you have a wonderful, blessed Merry Christmas as well my friend! 🎄🎄 Aloha from Hawaii!! 🌴♥☀
I've gotten 4 contractor quotes for an new central AC and asked each one if relocating the unit to the shady side of the house would be better. They all said no, but I can see where cooler ambient air temps around the unit logically should help. Maybe it's just not worth it in the PNW - although our summers are getting hotter and longer.
HVAC/R apprentice here, and in my limited time in the field in Oregon I can assure you, we replace far less parts on units that are shaded vs not.
It's all about air temp and air flow across condenser coil. The lower the condensing temperature the better.
Higher high side pressure due to higher condenser temp raises compression ratio and increases load on compressor motor increasing motor current.
Be careful any attempt at shading doesn't block air flow to outside unit. If the shading does not decrease the temp of air being sucked through condenser it's not doing any good. This usually means the shading has to be a large enough area to reduce surrounding air temperature.
Capacity of unit is based on refrigerant mass flow. Higher compression ratio reduces refrigerant mass flow reducing effective capacity of unit.
Excellent vid & info as usual ... But your jokes were , dare I say it ... For the '' Birds''...Thx and aloha my friend
Thank you Eddy! Haha yeah... The jokes.. The farm animals kept making noise while I was filming so I had to do some dad jokes involving the loudest of the bunch. 😅 Aloha and blessings from Hawaii my friend!!
@4m "the unit in the sun will work 10h, while the unit in the shade will work 8h" why would the outdoor unit work more or less when it only turns on based on the... nevermind, I think I got it. The one in the sun is hotter so it can't pump the heat out of the house as easily thus it works longer. I think it was just the phrasing that threw me off. I'll probably build a shade for mine not only for better cooling, but for hail and snow protection. It's a heat pump, during the winter it doesn't work as well if there's snow on it.
Spraying water onto the coils on hot dry days will increase the efficiency of the unit massively, but it also uses a ton of water. If you're somewhere where water is more scarce than power it's not worth it. Spraying water around the unit doesn't do much. Plus it could spray mud and stuff onto the unit.
Not all outdoor units blow up, mine sucks air from near the house and blows it away from the house.
Once the heat/light comes in the windows it's in the house and needs to be pumped out. Blinds/shades don't matter much. They'll hold some of the heat near the window where it can radiate out a little, but most of it will just stay in the house.
I experimented with those UV filter tints on my sliding door. Put one on the outside, and one on the inside. The outside one was markedly cooler than the inside one. You've gotta worry about weather and stuff, I just added some white duct tape to the corners to ensure it won't blow away. Looks a little janky up close but works quite well. Wish I had those tilting windows so I didn't need to get scaffolding or a ladder out for the other windows.
Another bonus to putting them on the outside is that you can use them on double and triple paned windows without worry. You're not supposed to use it on those else the vinyl gets too hot and starts melting.
Next I'm trying to figure out how to shade a whole side of my house. The walls are barely R15 and that morning/early afternoon sun practically shines through the wall to heat the house up. A shade sail can work, but every install I've seen is on a porch or existing window or as a roof. Not vertically freestanding, or on the side of the house. Plus it gets insanely windy here, so it'll have to be stronger than average.
This country is HVAC work 👍💐
Can you please make a video how to install a soft starter? I learned a lot from your video installing a hard starter but we have a new house and I’d love to install a soft starter so I can try using the hvac with a generator during power outages.
Yes, that would be a great video to make. Thank you for the suggestion, I will add this to the videos to make list.
Mahalo! Happy holidays
Thank you! I appreciate you stopping by for the new video, have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!!
Excelent videos have a good day
Thanks, you too!
What is not considered is how the sun and how weather affect the parts of the unit not just its operation. For example the hoses, pipes, coils etc. Surely the sun will affect these faster compared to being in the shade.
if the condenser function is to remove heat, why do we want to introduce heat by having it out in the sun?!!!!!! 🤔🤔
I would imagine the manufacturers consider that most a/c placements are probably a combination of shade and sun.
Probably so. The units are designed for outdoor use after all.
thats why those idiots put it directly on the south side of the house. godamn unit is 130 degrees right now
Cool video!
Thank you!
Happy holidays
Thank you sir! Wishing you and family a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year as well!
Shows that misting around it helps. I installed misters around mine. Mine is old, but still decent, but I want to change the compressor as its louder than normal. Not many who want to do this, they just want to sell new unit. hmm. Maybe need to buy it, and hire to replace it?
When the outdoor unit struggles to loose heat off the gas, how come direct sun that raises temperatures to 108 deg F, even in shade, would have negligible effect on the system?
My unit is smaller split type with no fan on the top as yours.
Very interesting no nonsense video but what about water misting solutions for outdoor unit like 'Cool-n-Save'? I live in India and the temperatures are soaring (yesterday max: 48°C/118°F). Does misting work or would it lead to corrosion in the long term - say 4-5 years?
A lot of commenters who tried water cooling say they had a problem with minerals in the water building up on the coil which would eventually block the air flow. New coils are very thin copper, so any corrosion could easily cause an expensive leak. A microscopic hole is all you need for the refrigerant to leak out.
Installation recommends the shady side of the house due to microclimates.
The shady side of a building could be significantly cooler.
That said, I didn’t see a sun shade in your video that would not void the warranty for restricting air flow.
Condensing units have shade. The cabinet shades the components.
Condensing units deal with air temperatures.
Sun load is inconsequential.
Yet people block air flow with sun shades.
My unit sits on the windward side of my house. Four feet away from the structure. No shrubbery. Only trees that are trimmed 10 feet up. To absorb the heat from the prevailing wind.
ASHRE studies this stuff.
The American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers.
Why not the high merv filters?
They are good filters but since most people tend to not replace filters regularly they become a problem. When they get dirty they become very air restrictive. I show examples of that in this video: ruclips.net/video/GoOKjINPgpY/видео.htmlsi=e0PoGkmG9JT00xE6
👍👍👍
👍👍👍 Your legendary triple thumbs up are always appreciated!! God bless you my friend!
I studied electronics in tech school and was taught that heat is your enemy in electronics. You want to keep the electronic components cool to prolong their lifespan. That is why, on the job, we would use compressed air to blow dust off circuit board components after opening up items to make repairs. Dust acts like a blanket and traps heat. So keeping the AC shaded makes sense.
You’re awesome kid.
Thank you!! 🙂
What’s 95f in c? Whatever already
He's speaking to an American audience.
95 degrees F = 35 degrees C
@@jamesengland7461 since I’m in Canada I should unsub, ok thanks.
@@hugomartinez692 thanks, I have a google machine in my pocket, just wanted to see the triggered comments 😁
My apologies. I grew up in America so I rarely use Celsius.
If you have a heat pump the sun can help in the winter.
You are right, thanks
Glad you agree, thanks for stopping by!
Thanks, good information
You bet! Have a marvelous rest of the weekend!