Anyone know of good air con for loft conversion?

[GEAFOMEF]

I was wondering if anyone might have a good recommendation for an air con system? We've had a loft conversion, which our daughters' bedrooms are in. It's way too hot though now the weather is getting nicer (not that I'm complaining about the weather!). I've tried opening windows pre bedtime, fans etc but just get hots again v quickly. Does anyone else have a similar problem and if so have you come up with a solution? Thanks!

[kibris]

You can buy a portable air con and in the winter just put it away and works out cheaper

[welshio]

+1 for portable aircon, it's an absolute god-send.

Good luck lugging one all the way up to the loft, the good ones are damn heavy.

[Borky]

Probably too late for you, but our initial LC was either too cold/ Too hot. Building the replacement one revealed rubbish / absent insulation that exaggerated the temp changes. New LC has ones about 20cm+ thick that apparently resolve this problem. A portable AC will cost you 2-300 quid but will invariably die after a year or two and cannot usually be recharged as the gases do leak with normal use. Unless your LC is seriously well sealed, fitting a perm one will be horrid expensive to run.

[Frenchy]

We have a proper split system.

Very quiet (the noisier bit - the compressor - stays at ground level, but even that is pretty quiet)

It's on at the moment, I can see it's costing somewhere between 3p and 5p per hour which works out to.. very little.

Works as a very efficient heater too, separate to GCH, which is surprisingly handy (it's the work room, really handy to give it a bit of heat in winter without having to heat the whole house)

Obviously not the cheap option, but for what we needed it for, amazeballs.

[ruffers]

Frenchy - who did you get to fit it, and can you give us an idea of how much the system ended up costing?

[johnie]

We bought one of these last year, and it works pretty well. It will cool the loft rooms down in about 10 minutes, and we put it on every couple of hours (we have a office in the loft with south facing Velux windows). This one is discontinued I think, but there are similar alternatives.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Homegear-Portable-Conditioner-Dehumidifier-Control/dp/B01ERLMJ92

[Frenchy]

Got it fitted by an outfit called 'All Seasons Climate Control', it was about ?1800 (inc vat) fitted. Definitely not the cheapest company but seeing as they were the only company of four that could be bothered to call back, come round and quote, they got the job!

If you're ok with very tall ladders, drilling through walls and know an electrician to sort the power (you need to get power to the outside unit, that also sends the power to the indoor part) then you could buy the units themselves for ?600-?800 and do it yourself.

That said, no complaints about All Seasons. They were thoroughly professional, very nice and did a very neat job with the fit and all the cabling. Cancel their 'annual maintenance contract' asap though, which is not good value and I suspect aimed at corporations rather than domestic users - get another dude in to inspect/clean every couple of years depending on use.

Possibly overkill to just cool a bedroom down a bit on hot days, but totally worth it for our needs.

[ruffers]

Thanks. Our room is essentially a zinc box on the top of the house and gets really hot so might give it a go, that price is less than I thought it might be.

[Frenchy]

Ours was a couple of years back. Allow for a couple of hundred extra now 'because of Brexit, Sir'.

Get a few quotes. I think ?1500 or so ought to be achievable with a smaller company. If you've already got a means of getting the power to it outside (or know a man who can) you'll save a few quid.

[GEAFOMEF]

Thanks so much everyone!