Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff5may
The unit I have chosen to modify is a vintage GE window air conditioner. It was donated to me by my wife's grandma when she upgraded to something newer. Beige box with a brown grille, 110v, 12k btu. I'll post pics of it when I have enough posts, but I bet you've all seen one. Made in USA, built to last a long time, cheap and commonly available. Not much to look at, perfect for a hot rod project.
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I tested a 6,000 BTU AC for heating a few years ago..
It was able to heat up a small bedroom. But it wasn't really very cold outdoors..
I took the rig down to my basement and setup to heat a very small laundry room.
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...heatOutput.jpg
Sat the unit in the doorway and blocked the top with a blanket.
It was cool in the basement (60-62F) and it heated the 8'x8' room up, over 10deg F..
My guess is, a good 12,000 BTUh window AC plugged in backwards,
will give you around 12,000 BTUh of heat, when outdoor temps are in the 60s (or higher).
But, as the outdoor temp drops, so will the BTUhs of heating..
It will stay on longer, so it will use more power to 'pump' the same amount of BTUhs indoors.
Window type ASHP heater/coolers are selling now, but 40F outdoors is their limit.
(On all of the ones I've inquired about).
I think you will still get some heat pumped in, but when it gets really chilly outdoors,
you might do better with a $20 1500w ceramic space heater or two..
In order to make this experiment work, I had to insulate the thermostat sensor
that's normally found mounted in the center outside of the indoor HX coil (Evap).
If I wanted to build a control for this hack, I would place a heater resistor
on the AC thermostat sensor tube (wrapped with insulating tape) and apply heat
to the thermostat tube, so the cold outdoors wouldn't keep
turning off the compressor.
