Wall A/C Units

[Nick]

i.e. Magic Paks, but that appears to be a specific company so I'll go with the general description

I'm working on a new streets.mn article about the individual unit A/C units that pretty much all new low-rise construction has these days. Does anyone have any recommendations for good/bad examples of that before I go ride my bike around the city in circles taking pictures? I'm pretty sure Sydney Hall and Melrose/District on Delaware/Stadium View have pretty good examples of rust stains leaking down their exteriors, unless someone has CLR-ed that since the last time I saw them.

[Nick]

Solid B- here:

https://streets.mn/2013/08/21/wall-ac-u ... be-unseen/

[MNdible]

Thanks for the article, Nick.

Obviously, it's one of my pet peeves.

A couple of comments. It's important to note that the Magic-Paks and their ilk are both cooling and heating units. That's what makes them so magical! They have a compressor that runs a heat pump, and in cold climates like ours they need to back that up with a little natural gas furnace. All bundled into one tidy unit.

Since they have compressors, they can be loud, which isn't the case with centralized equipment, which centralizes the noise somewhere else that's not in your living unit.

As for why they're cheaper, I'd suggest an analogy. You need to store your clothes in your condo. You could hire a carpenter to come to your unit and build you a special built-in. He would take some time to design it, and it would be exactly what you needed, and it would be rock solid, and it would serve you well for a long time. Or, you could go to Ikea and buy an off the shelf shelf. Down the road, if your built-in needed repairs or your needs changed, you would have to bring back the carpenter to your condo. Or, you could just go to Ikea and buy another shelf. Which is cheaper, both in first costs and long-term costs?

[FISHMANPET]

Let me say, as someone who lives in a 40 year old building in the ghetto with central AC, I wish I had a wall unit. The AC and duct work is 40 years old and needs to be replaced but it's a huge pile of money at once and the owner will never do it until the rental market loosens way up.

If he could replace the AC unit by unit rather than all at once I think he'd be much more willing to do so.

Also from an environmental perspective, while a central system could potentially be more energy efficient, it's also not possible to charge people for the cooling they use. If my apartment's AC unit was connected to my electric meter I'd probably think twice before cranking the cooling down to 50, since that would actually cost me money, whereas right now it doesn't (although if the temperature would even get down to 80 that would be a miracle.

[seanrichardryan]

Throughout this unending cold, I notice the wall units leave big frost & ice smears on the sides of buildings. It's especially ugly by the front entrance of the Walkway and the backside of Blue. Some of the balconies looks like snow caves...

[garfield]

And that is just what we see on the outside. Just think of the moisture behind the cladding and inside the walls. And now that these are all stick-framed, you are talking serious damage.

[mattaudio]

I'm aware of a discussion for a project outside the metro where an elected official is pushing back on a developer who is insisting on individual units. Can folks provide their thoughts on them? And some good vs bad examples of where they've been implemented? That would help things.