A LITTLE ABOUT AIR CON
The build quality and type of thermal insulation varies so greatly in the Algarve that sometimes this is difficult to easily quantify.
A very simple and more accurate way of finding out how much your air conditioning is costing is to turn off all your major appliances in the villa and take an initial meter reading. Come back after an hour and take another meter reading and minus this from the initial reading which will indicate your energy consumption in KW per Hour as a base rate. Turn on all your aircon units on maximum and come back after an hour and take a final reading. Use this formula to estimate your maximum aircon consumption:
final reading - (base rate)*2 - initial reading = KW per hour energy consumption of your air conditioning units at maximum.
Check your EDP bill and there will be a Euro Rate per KW hour and use this to calculate how much it is costing per hour.
You might be surprised at the cost.
The reason for this is that most of the cheaper air conditioning units have a very low efficiency rating, (can be rating E and below), which often end up costing you more in the long run. Generally it is better to opt for the "INVERTER" type air conditioners which are more expensive to buy, but can be very efficient (rating A) (cheaper) to run.
bIG IS BETTER?
Many people buy an air conditioner that is too powerful, thinking it will provide better cooling. But an over-sized system is actually less effective — and wastes energy! Air conditioners remove both heat and humidity from the air. If the unit is too powerful, it will cool the room quickly but only remove some of the humidity, leaving the room with a damp, clammy feeling. A properly-sized unit will remove humidity more effectively as it cools.
The correct specification is generally allied to the size of room. The Penguin website has a table which allows you to estimate this for yourself. Sometimes, however, other factors need considering, such as if a room is particularly sunny or shady; or if the room has unusually high ceilings or a mezzanine level. For these reasons, and to assess the optimum positioning, configuration of system and the pipework involved, it's always wise to arrange a site-visit from your installer.
R22 BANNED
R22 is the most common form of refrigerant or hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) used by air conditioning systems.
Due to new EU directives it is now banned for all uses.
R22 will still be around until about 2015, but any new units installed are no longer supplied with this refrigerant - the problem arises when we need to replace refrigerant on your old units as we no longer have access to any form of Freon (R22). i.e. your units running on freon will not be considered illegal.
There is an alternative available but it is not yet in common use in Portugal. Please bear with us while we try and find a supply.
But if you have old malfunctioning units it is quite sensible to consider installing newer, more efficent units under warranty - spare parts in Portugal for the older units can be a nightmare to get hold of and it is quite often cheaper just to replace the unit.
Please contact us for an EU friendly alternative ....
