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Don't get me started on how it works in my country. People who don't have a balcony are screwed and are entirely dependent on homeowners association which arbi
by margor 21d ago
Don't get me started on how it works in my country.
People who don't have a balcony are screwed and are entirely dependent on homeowners association which arbitrarily can agree or not, or they can stay indecisive about it and not let you do anything.
Well, if you have a balcony? you just put it there and make the necessary holes for it, problem solved.
The effect is exactly the same - you just have AC installed. In one case you have to go through totally unnecessary hoops, and in other case, you just do whatever you want.
What's even the point of it?
- Ekaros 21d agoIt is not entirely that simple. Condensate water is potential problem if wrongly discharged. But adding sufficient drainage is not that expensive per balcony basis. So it is something that should be fixed.
- post-it 21d agoCondensate is discharged from the inside unit, it should never make it to the balcony.
- imp0cat 21d agoIn a typical mini-split, the water flows to the outside unit and exits the system there, so you either have a pump or a sufficiently sloped pipe from the inside unit to the outside unit. edit: I guess you could route the drain pipe anywhere if you wanted, so I retract my previous statement.
- margor 21d agoWhere do you think it is getting discharged?
- post-it 21d agoInto drains in the parking garage in the case of my building. Though thinking more about it now, it's totally reasonable that other buildings might find it easiest to drain to the outside unit.
- imp0cat 21d agoYou can have drain pipes installed, but you can also just collect the water in a bucket and empty it periodically. That requires no extra investment of money, just a tiny bit of your willpower and manpower, depending on the size of the bucket. There are also systems that spray the water back at the AC unit to cool it down, this is supposed to both improve efficiency and evaporate the water so you don't have to deal with it. I am sure those have some downsides, too.
- Ekaros 21d agoBoth are options. Still both also carry risks or don't solve entire issue. With buckets you don't want to them overflow on floors for example. And with spraying it on ac you want complete evaporation or you are back to same problem. As said it is not too hard problem but still something that most likely requires consideration.
- margor 21d agoI am all for solving these problems and making sure they don't cause problems for others. My problem is with the ability for arbitrary people to say "no" to your case, without even considering the options or facts. Sure thing, you could go to court if they have any problem, but who is going to fight for AC worth $500 for a few years just to get it installed?
- iso1631 21d agoIf you're worried about that amount of water, what do you do when it rains?
- yourusername 21d agoMost balconies are already going to have drainage for rain water so solving the drainage problem requires a <$1 piece of plastic tube.