This funny meme is also a good example of survivorship bias. There are both good and shitty ACs from both eras. We're just only comparing to the good old ACs because the shitty ones already broke.
The same seems to apply for old music as well - only the "good stuff" survives and everything else is forgotten
While I agree with you past generations weren't swamped with infinite selections of shitty versions of products at their fingertips. Think it feels worse now because it's harder to find the good stuff these days
It's had a lot to do with manufacturers trying to cater to a certain price point where they can maximize sales and profits, rather than simply trying to make the best product they can make. It leads to a lot of cheap garbage.
That's a very valid point. Today's ease of access to a wider variety of sources is vastly different to the pre-internet era of appliance shopping. Back then, we just went to the nearest Sears or some other appliance warehouse to try them out. They'd have just a few different models available, so those were all your options. The other method of purchase was through direct shipping catalogs, where you hoped the product you bought didn't actually suck.
That is true, although earlier generations didn't have access to as many different variations of a product, most of the ones available to them were the high-end versions. The trade-off is that they costed much more due to being a more premium product and being new on the market.
Pretty sure all of my old apartments had the shitty window units, none of them ever worked.
You forgot about the part where it is 70% asbestos and radioactive coolant. 10/10 best ACs ever.
That old, toxic refrigerant just hit different
The new stuff just doesn't taste the same.
You can do a 1:1 swap of refrigerant, and if I remember correctly, the new stuff actually works better.
Heck, early refrigeration systems used friggen ammonia as it's refrigerant of choice. Works good at being compressed and evaporated, shame about it being poison.
Didn’t know that, I was thinking of the CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) we used like 30/40 years ago
The reason those took off so well is cause Freon, while awful for ozone, is significantly safer than the previous usage of ammonia.
Refrigerators and air conditioners just compress a gas into a liquid, moves it through piping, and then decompresses the gas. When compressing the gas (a refrigerant), it'll want to turn liquid, but has to burn off heaps of excess energy, done as heat energy. That's done in the part of an AC unit that hangs outside. The liquid is then pumped to the other side of the machine, relieved of pressure, and sent through tons of piping with heat grates and fans for dissipating the cold air it generates. When evaporating from liquid to gas it needs to take in heaps of energy, so it'll draw heat from the air, cooling it. The gas is pumped back to the compressor on the other side of the unit to repeat the process over and over. Propane is really good at being compressed like that, and it has minimal effect on global warming, so it can be used as a freon alternative. Just yanno, don't use it in your car's AC.
Weird my mini split is a workhorse. It doesn't give two shits about dust, dirt, ice, rain, or snow. It has heated the house in single digits and cooled the house in triple digits (both F). 10/10. Best $1800 I ever spent.
For real, mini splits are insanely powerful. They'll make a room frigidly too cold in nanoseconds if you ask them to.
I wouldn’t say nanoseconds… might be my system with multiple units,but one can take a minute to get its bearings. Once on though I really only need one unit for the whole place despite having 3.
But the first needs at least two power lines to work.
CoP of negative 10.
German here, I don't get that joke. What the fuck's an Air Conditioner? Some time of specail air you put in your hair after using shampoo?
Yeah, it's for when your air is too flat and frizzy.
My old AC works great. I just wish I could hear other things while it's running.
We missed out on the freon black market that's consumed by cyborg men in vans.
We need to figure out how to retrofit those old machines to be as efficient as the new ones, and be clean and pigeon free. Then we can keep them around.
Planned Obsolesce!
No. Industrial air conditioning units are showing the same thing. They are getting lighter and better at cooling.
Control panels some times need air conditioners. Old enough companies, like my ex-employer, can even pull up records to show that the shipping weights are going down. Lost a bet with my old boss about this.
but at least it can connect to wifi
And then won't work if the Wi-Fi is down
everyone needs to take a break from time to time
I miss my old really noisy air conditioner window unit. I loved the noise from it, it drowned out other sounds and I got better sleep. My room air filters generate some decent white noise effects, but it's just not the same.
The best part about window units is the dank freezer smell they emit. Sometimes I just stand there and smell it while enjoying the cool air on my face.
Central air conditioning system or bust 😂
For real though, never lived in a place that had these window units. Guess these are more common on the east coast.
As heat waves are becoming more common, lots more people are wanting air conditioning in places where it was previously seen as a waste of money. Retrofitting existing housing with central air generally isn't feasible, so all types of air conditioning have their place. The worst are portable units, but in a lot of places they're the only option that works.
Mini splits air conditioners (the one on the right) have some major advantages over central air.
With central air there's one big condenser and evaporator for the whole house and dampers are used to block the chilled/heated air to zones that aren't requesting for air. Since all the zones share the same air source, the more zones that need heated/cooled the slower it'll take. This system also prevents one zone from requesting heating while another requests cooling as the system can only do one at a time.
Now with mini splits each zone gets it's own condenser and evaporator meaning each zone is free to heat/cool to each zones needs and airflow isn't effected by other zones. The biggest reason why mini splits are better though is because if there is an issue you'll only lose one zone instead of the entire HVAC as you would with a central unit.
Consider a series of smaller units and one outdoor unit. Together they do the exact same thing as your central ac but for 1/4 of the price.
Imagine 1/4th the electric bill! Then look at your current setup and ask yourself whatever you need about the east coast, as long as you need… everyone else has the same cooling as you with 1/4 the cost. Sooo central or bust amiright? Keep paying / throwing away your money, more than everyone else… and why?
Look into the engineering of evaporating and condensing a material in a slightly different way than you are used to… it’s not weird.
Forget the hippy shit. You are paying 4-5x the cost for the same result. Feel free to keep throwing away money. The rest of us don’t care. We’re not on the “east coast” but we pay less than you regardless…
Yes the older models are the little engine that could. (come to think of it most of you are too young to get that reference). The expensive big one threw a belt and became useless after four years.
But I moved to a place where I'm on the shady side of the building and as a result all I need are fans.
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
