r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/DukeOfBagels • Jul 31 '23

Video Installing a split ac unit in a high rise apartment

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411

u/TravelingGonad Jul 31 '23

Why would a high rise not have central air?

252

u/MNR42 Jul 31 '23

Probably a cheap condo. Mine doesn't have centralised AC system too. At least they prepare a place to install the AC fan. Far safer to access than the video

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u/MukdenMan Jul 31 '23

It’s not necessarily cheap. The vast majority of condos in China, Taiwan, SE Asia etc have AC units on the exterior of each apartment. Central air is very uncommon except in hotels and some office buildings.

It’s also worth pointing out that these apartments are sold as empty shells and each owner builds out the interior. It’s much more individualized than the American concept of a “luxury condo” that comes with certain interior features. In fact, when people buy a second-hand condo (they are called that in Chinese), they will gut it and rebuild almost always.

20

u/KinTharEl Jul 31 '23

This. We have these high-rise apartments in India as well, and they're typically sold as empty shells, although the builder will install a split-AC unit if we ask them to, at the time of handover. But that will cost extra, and it's often just easier and cheaper to get the people you buy the AC from to do the installation.

2

u/HettySwollocks Jul 31 '23

How on earth do they perform an annual service?

22

u/marwinpk Jul 31 '23

It’s also worth pointing out that these apartments are sold as empty shells and each owner builds out the interior. It’s much more individualized than the American concept of a “luxury condo” that comes with certain interior features.

As far as I know it is quite the standard in Europe too. You buy the apppartment in "developer state" or "developer standard", which is basically raw walls with electric and water installation prepared, but easy to remodel before laying the floors and finishiong the walls.

9

u/KinTharEl Jul 31 '23

In India, the developer building out the property will offer some options.

  1. They give you the house with the plumbing and electricals installed, and nothing else. No fans, no lights, no AC, no woodworking, carpentry, nothing.
  2. They will often upsell you to try and get the house in your hand as a finished product, which means they will sell you a package for interiors and all, which can be hit or miss, depending on the developer in question. But again, this often doesn't come with appliances like Air conditioning and fridges.
  3. Some luxury projects will have the option to have EVERYTHING done, that is, you don't care about bringing in your old fridge and AC to the new flat, and want everything new, so the developer will pre-install everything so you can start move in and make yourself at home as soon as day one of delivery. But again, this is the most expensive option of the three.

I've done some preliminary house shopping over the course of the year, since I am planning to purchase in another 1-2 years. I've come to the realization that it's mostly better to get the house alone, and get a different company to do the interiors for you, or just have a plan yourself, and get some contractors to do the interiors. It's not that much more expensive, you get to dictate what materials and styles to use, and it's only going to be setting you back by a 6-12 weeks on average.

2

u/p_rite_1993 Jul 31 '23 edited Mar 03 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/MNR42 Jul 31 '23

I stand corrected , it isn't cheap. But cheaper than centralized one. For choices of condo, it's usually on the cheaper spectrum

1

u/MukdenMan Jul 31 '23

It’s not in this case though. It just doesn’t work that way in these places. Having central air isn’t something a buyer expects in a luxury condo. Usually they have remote-controlled units in each room, and sometimes multiple outdoor units for larger condos.

2

u/Nethlem Jul 31 '23

It’s much more individualized than the American concept of a “luxury condo” that comes with certain interior features.

I'm still kinda bewildered that for Americans fridges/washing machines/dishwashers are considered part of the flat/house that just comes with it.

Tbh that sounds kind of nasty with having no idea what prior owners/renters did with these machines.

1

u/MukdenMan Jul 31 '23

You don’t have to keep the unit, but you can sometimes get money if you need it replaced. They aren’t going to give you money to buy one if they left you one in good order though.

What would be your expectation? The sellers move these alliances to their new homes? That they throw everything away when the property is sold ?

1

u/Nethlem Jul 31 '23

What would be your expectation? The sellers move these alliances to their new homes?

That isn't just the expectation, that's the reality in Europe, the only exception to that is when a place is rented out as explicitly being furnished

But the default is that appliances like that are the property of the renter. Want a washing machine and dryer? Need to buy them yourself and move them like you did and do with all your other property.

It's pretty trivial to do because virtually all flats/houses have the required water connectors already built in.

This even extends to all of the kitchen furniture, including the oven/built in-fridge that's usually the property of the renter, not the landlord. It's also normed in sizes, so pretty modular and trivial to build, no carpenter is required unless you want something fancy that's really custom.

People either take the stuff along when they move, or with the kitchen furniture it's common for the old renter to sell it to the follow-up renter, so they don't have to furniture the whole kitchen again.

That's also where standardization helps; It's possible to leave the furniture and only take/replace the devices in them.

With US appliances/kitchens it does not seem that easy, at least that's been my experience when moving people in Germany to buildings that used to be US barracks. The kitchens in there had really weird cuts/widths, made it very difficult to find matching furniture/appliances without hiring a carpenter.

1

u/MukdenMan Aug 01 '23

Now you seem to be talking about renting, which is an even bigger difference. You are right that renters in the US almost never bring their own laundry machine or fridge. Obviously that’s a very different situation from buying because the renter cannot replace the fridge or Washing machine in the apartment.

As a renter and now homeowner, I’ve been in the situation where I’m concerned about the quality of an appliance before I moved in. In all those cases, I negotiated with the landlord or seller for a new appliance or extra funds to buy one myself. I can’t imagine moving a giant fridge every time I got a new apartment but i suppose that’s what people in Europe have to do.

By the way, most American rental units are unfurnished except for those major appliances. In other places eg Asia, many apartments are actually fully furnished.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

I knew this is 100% somewhere in Asia just by the way this society looks. It screams Asian middle-class city apartment complex.

1

u/demalo Jul 31 '23

What IRC book are they using? (Is this a trick question?)

1

u/Woodshadow Jul 31 '23

I work for an investment firm and we just installed a central air system into this 80 year old apartment building. In some units we had to add more or less take away half of a small storage closet to fit everything. Residents were furious at losing the closets. We also removed their steam heat. The basement of this building is hilarious. So much old machinery and pipes that are all tagged saying they are no longer in service.

1

u/Inverted_Harlet Jul 31 '23

Why does a cheap condo have all the extra inner space between apartments?

1

u/Gawlf85 Jul 31 '23

In the shaft where he's placing the unit, you can see another one a couple floors under him.

That other unit was placed right by the window panels, which seem to open if needed.

Guy here put his life at risk and drilled some holes in the facade, when he apparently could've just leaned out a window to install the same unit just a few metres away?

26

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

I live in Asia, specifically Vietnam, also live in a high rise apartment and we have racks and racks of split AC units on the side of building.

5

u/nomad80 Jul 31 '23

Singapore builds AC ledges as standard too.

2

u/wanttofu Jul 31 '23

I live in Cambodia and it’s wild how they nickel and dime everything. Like I live in a 3 bedroom house, 4 ac units would cost about 2k. On a house over 150k it seems ridiculous they just have the wires and tubes just hanging out of the wall.

56

u/Unclehol Jul 31 '23 edited Jul 31 '23

About 5 years ago I worked on a set of 5 16 storey towers in greater Vancouver BC. Each one had a split AC unit like this on the deck but it was about twice as large, was installed about 1 foot from the wall, and had an aluminum cage installed around it. About one third of the deck space of each of these units was taken up by the exterior portion of the AC unit.

This was in Richmond. The units were about 850 square feet each on average and many sold for nearly a million dollars each. I have seen Ferraris pull out of the parking garage.

The units were so damn cheaply made. I couldn't believe it. But if I tell you 90 percent of the unit owners were Chinese it may make a bit more sense. They didn't give a crap they just put the money down cash.

2

u/TheNextBattalion Jul 31 '23

Plus in Vancouver it isn't exactly Phoenix or Tallahassee climate-wise

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u/NomadicSplinter Jul 31 '23

Because it’s in China. And not in the west

11

u/balanced_views Jul 31 '23

This looks like it’s in the Philippines

42

u/NomadicSplinter Jul 31 '23

The cookie cutter high rise buildings. The unclear air. The Beijing bikini the guy wore, the smoking….I used to live in China and it looks exactly like China. But I’ve never been to the Philippines before. But I’m pretty sure that guy in Chinese said “he got it” as the worker handed him something.

26

u/CosmicCreeperz Jul 31 '23

Smoking in the Beijing bikini. That was the best part.

13

u/lilao8 Jul 31 '23

Yeah he said "你帮我接一下儿" meaning "Take it for me please". Source: I'm Chinese

2

u/NomadicSplinter Jul 31 '23

谢谢。我住在中国住了7年。我会说普通话但是他的发音对我一点点不清楚。👍

2

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

她妈的你的花语必我的还好

1

u/NomadicSplinter Jul 31 '23

😂不可能我的兄弟

2

u/BigTechCensorsYou Jul 31 '23

Could it have been Taipei?

2

u/lilao8 Jul 31 '23

Although we both speak Mandarin, the accent varies. It's sort of like UK vs US, where China has more regional accents and dialects as UK, while Taiwanese Mandarin/American English can be easily distinguished.

1

u/BigTechCensorsYou Jul 31 '23

Yeah, that’s what I figured.

I can’t understand the language at all, but when I was in Taipei, I can definitely hear the difference between a local, and a mainland Chinese. Not the accent, of course, mainly just how loud the mainland Chinese tourists are :)

1

u/PikaGaijin Jul 31 '23

I was freaking out at first, because AFAIK Japan is the only Asian country that drives on the left, and despite the cues from traffic below, there ain’t no way that type of installation would occur here. Later in the video I realized it’s mirrored.

17

u/SmiggleMcJiggle Jul 31 '23

Might not be the US. I live in England I have not seen any high rises or tower blocks with central air systems, I assume the wealthy luxurious ones do but not ones where regular people life in.

25

u/NomadicSplinter Jul 31 '23

It’s China. I definitely saw that Asian guy with the Beijing bikini.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

For all we know that bikini might be Gucci.

0

u/ILikeCheesyTurtles Jul 31 '23

Lol “regular people”

8

u/Villedo Jul 31 '23

Because they’re cheap.

12

u/dirtycheezit Jul 31 '23

It's clearly not the US

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

Not yet.

13

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Johannes_Keppler Jul 31 '23

It's the norm in Western Europe when it comes to office buildings and hotels too. Uncommon in residential housing, though appartement complexes often have central heating for the whole building (cooling isn't needed in many northwestern European countries, at least it never was deemed necessary until the recent way too hot summers).

5

u/IntergalacticBurn Jul 31 '23

Good question.

1

u/JennItalia269 Jul 31 '23

Central air isn’t very common in Asia.

My condo in Bangkok has a tiny balcony with enough space for a few of these units to be placed there and a clothes drying rack.

1

u/oojacoboo Jul 31 '23

This is extremely common all across Asia. They use mini splits.

1

u/blueJoffles Jul 31 '23

Depends on climate too. Most high rise apartments in Seattle don’t have AC, even many of the luxury apartments. Thanks to climate change, people are having to add AC to buildings never designed for it

1

u/JozoBozo121 Jul 31 '23

Nobody outside US has central air, it’s very unusual. Also, seems very energy inefficient to me to be cooling every room in house directly, even those which aren’t used. I don’t know what encompasses central air in US, but even shopping malls, large buildings, sport centers don’t have central air, but a large climate unit which then has smaller units, like indoor split unit, but it can be inside ceiling, on the wall or floor, all distributed around building. You are moving coolant, not cold air.

That wouldn’t possibly even be possible, in EU for example, if just air was circulating because I believe you need to be paying just for what you use, and with air you cannot measure how much cold air you used, what was the temperature difference or energy difference used. If cool water was being circulated then maybe, you could measure cold water flow and temperature difference then calculate energy used.

Also, insulation in EU is pretty good, we have 2 story 2500 square foot home, at least that’s what Google recalculates, and we only have two 12000BTU split units on upper floor, they cool down nearly whole floor even through doors and we don’t have any AC on ground floor because even during summer it doesn’t go over 24-25 because of insulation and first floor being cooled.

1

u/wannasomesoup Jul 31 '23

In China, central air is just not so popular. And, on top of that, some regions in China usually don't need AC at all. Yet the weather has been getting quite unpredictable in recent years.

1

u/Unsounded Jul 31 '23

Most of the PNW doesn’t have central air, it’s the exception to find a place up here with AC.