That picture is actively making things worse than better. Your window unit needs to be able to vent out that waste heat. Putting some shade over it farther away would certainly help. Setting up...
That picture is actively making things worse than better. Your window unit needs to be able to vent out that waste heat. Putting some shade over it farther away would certainly help. Setting up some of these to shade the house will do wonders. Trees are better, but can take 10 years to be useful, and harder to deploy in super-dry or urban environments.
More trees suburbanites. You need trees protecting your house from the sun in the summer. It'll easily make a 10-20 degree difference.
It would also be helpful to mandate solar roofs over all parking lots, but that's a bigger ask.
Heh, our house has a lot of trees. We had a neighbor who cut all hers down and wanted us to cut ours down. Nope. Our house also stays cooler a lot farther into summer (during spring it can be hot...
Heh, our house has a lot of trees. We had a neighbor who cut all hers down and wanted us to cut ours down. Nope. Our house also stays cooler a lot farther into summer (during spring it can be hot outside and still feel like you need a long sleeve shirt inside the house).
What in the ever(green)-loving-fuck? I will never understand human beings. Trees are incredible helpful Flora and beautiful on top of that. Why would you ever cut them down? My brother in law...
We had a neighbor who cut all hers down and wanted us to cut ours dow
What in the ever(green)-loving-fuck?
I will never understand human beings. Trees are incredible helpful Flora and beautiful on top of that. Why would you ever cut them down?
My brother in law chopped his 50 year old tree down because he got tired of cleaning up the fruitfall every summer. The tree was three stories high and gorgeous. It shaded his house perfectly, while being a safe enough distance that it's unlikely the roots were anywhere near the foundation.
It took everyone of those 50 years to grow. And they turned it into firewood. Lo-and-behold they are getting air conditioning this year because it's suddenly too hot in the summer.
Depends on where you live. There are plenty of areas where trees have been planted and grown that really really should not have. It also doesn't help that they tend to be a major pain in the ass...
Depends on where you live. There are plenty of areas where trees have been planted and grown that really really should not have. It also doesn't help that they tend to be a major pain in the ass to upkeep properly if you're dealing with close quarters plots.
I doubt that's the case in OP's scenario, but it's a pretty reasonable decision when the roots start screwing up driveways and walls, especially if it's not yours.
A valid point. Keep in mind, a lot of yards don't use native flora, or choose trees for landscaping purposes. Our house had two or three tall pine trees that were planted because they grew fast,...
A valid point. Keep in mind, a lot of yards don't use native flora, or choose trees for landscaping purposes. Our house had two or three tall pine trees that were planted because they grew fast, but that fast growth came at the cost of short roots. One day my mom was looking out the window and saw one just fall over. It wasn't a super windy day or anything, either. Luckily the trees were at the back of our yard, so it didn't hit any houses, but we had to get them removed ASAP.
Trees should be planted with more than aesthetics in mind. Sometimes it's fine, other times it becomes a potential hazard. That said, still not a fan of people cutting down pre-existing native trees when it's not absolutely necessary.
This is what made me finally buy a generator big enough to run the A/C in out house – traditionally we have lost power due to ice in the winter, but the winters were still pretty mild overall and...
This is what made me finally buy a generator big enough to run the A/C in out house – traditionally we have lost power due to ice in the winter, but the winters were still pretty mild overall and easily survivable with alternative heating. My new model is grid failure in the summer due to ever increasing demand and no investment in grid infrastructure.
A few years ago, Columbus had a major transmission line down for maintenance when a heat wave hit. My sister was out of power for three days.
I don’t think that’s the case. A difference of 40°F is huge to a person but nothing to an engine block. If anything failed it would be the inverter and other electrical components. Which a solar...
I don’t think that’s the case. A difference of 40°F is huge to a person but nothing to an engine block. If anything failed it would be the inverter and other electrical components. Which a solar setup would also have, along with batteries which will want to stay in a specific temperature range that varies by manufacturer. So I don’t think solar is inherently more heat resistant.
I’m sure there are cheapo consumer grade generators out there that would fail in warm weather conditions, but I doubt that’s the norm. At the very least, I have a fair amount of experience with big commercial grade generators and I know those things can operate in all kinds of crazy conditions. So even consumer grade products should be somewhat resilient if they’re designed right.
The main benefit of solar is that you can run it continuously without worry once it’s setup, since it doesn’t need fuel or produce emissions. But if you were purely concerned with emergency power, I probably wouldn’t recommend it just because of the added expense and complexity.
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. About the battery temps though: isn't that pretty consistently between ~ 20 - 25 celsius? That's what I have always heard about EV batteries.
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. About the battery temps though: isn't that pretty consistently between ~ 20 - 25 celsius? That's what I have always heard about EV batteries.
Solar panels and batteries also have issues due to overheating. For solar panels it's what causes the "double peak" during the day where they become too hot to operate at maximum efficiency and...
Solar panels and batteries also have issues due to overheating. For solar panels it's what causes the "double peak" during the day where they become too hot to operate at maximum efficiency and their output drops. For batteries it degrades their storage capacity, both in the long and short term.
A gas generator will eventually have problems too, but in the shade, with a radiator and a fan, running for efficiency instead of maximum output, it's going to be a long time coming. Operating temp for an engine is already well over 150 degrees F. You're going to have a mechanical failure because it's been running too long without maintenance well before it overheats because the ambient temp is ~100F.
That might be a concern (for example) i the southern US where triple digit temps are now the norm. But I live in the northern US, so we're not talking about temperatures so hot the generator will...
That might be a concern (for example) i the southern US where triple digit temps are now the norm. But I live in the northern US, so we're not talking about temperatures so hot the generator will fail. But our grid will fail (or be less reliable) because it wasn't designed for the extra load caused by all the people running their A/C. And only a little increase in temp is needed for that.
Edit: didn't mean to pile on, I was replying from my messages.
I definitely would do solar if we had the space, but we don't have room for the panels we would need for our power capacity.
Could you elaborate on why you wouldn't have enough room? I am imagening an average NA suburban house, and that would probably work, but that is a complete guess of course.
Could you elaborate on why you wouldn't have enough room? I am imagening an average NA suburban house, and that would probably work, but that is a complete guess of course.
I can't speak to their specific case, but the further away from the equator you go, you have less sunlight exposure overall since you get more sunlight exposure south-facing and there aren't as...
I can't speak to their specific case, but the further away from the equator you go, you have less sunlight exposure overall since you get more sunlight exposure south-facing and there aren't as many hours in the day where there is sunlight. I have a friend who has solar panels on his house, and he only has them on the south facing of his house because that's where the most sunlight exposure occurs in our region and he tells me that it doesn't cover all his electricity usage, and he has invested a bit in energy efficiency in his home so it's not like he has super high demands of electricity (though he does have an electric car to charge too).
I'm in the Pacific NW, no south facing roof. My panels (and batteries) cut down an electric bill of ~$140/mo to ~90/yr. Most utilities up here will credit you 1kwh per contributed 1kwh. Those...
I'm in the Pacific NW, no south facing roof. My panels (and batteries) cut down an electric bill of ~$140/mo to ~90/yr. Most utilities up here will credit you 1kwh per contributed 1kwh. Those credits build in the summer and help cut costs in the winter. I also get credit for letting the utility here take from my batteries during peak hours on specified days (only a handful throughout the year).
All that to say, lack of southern facing roof space in the NW isn't much of a barrier to entry.
I am curious, if you're willing to say, what was the up front investment for your system like? I can see the benefit of this from reducing utility costs and simply being more green. Since the...
I am curious, if you're willing to say, what was the up front investment for your system like? I can see the benefit of this from reducing utility costs and simply being more green.
Since the original context of this was being able to sustain oneself through a power outage, what would your setup provide in that situation? Like if the grid is down, or has rolling blackouts due to overload, could you cut down to essentials and ride out a few days on panels and batteries?
It sounds like the latter wasn't your reason for investing in it, so I'm not trying to knock it, just curious to hear from you as someone who actually has experience with it.
Our house has a pretty compact footprint (two stories and a basement), so the roof area is small. We have relatively cloudy weather and are at a higher altitude, so less solar intensity. Putting...
Our house has a pretty compact footprint (two stories and a basement), so the roof area is small. We have relatively cloudy weather and are at a higher altitude, so less solar intensity. Putting them in the non–shady part of our yard would pretty much eliminate the ability for kids to play in it.
Fair enough. Have you considered using Solar panels on/as fencing? I've heard some pretty positive results from that. I've even heard that vertical panels can be more efficient than angled ones.
Fair enough. Have you considered using Solar panels on/as fencing? I've heard some pretty positive results from that. I've even heard that vertical panels can be more efficient than angled ones.
Our lot is pretty small, about 1/4 of an acre. We share a fence line on three sides, and about half of the fence line is in tree shade. The unshaded parts of the fence face east and west. I think...
Our lot is pretty small, about 1/4 of an acre. We share a fence line on three sides, and about half of the fence line is in tree shade. The unshaded parts of the fence face east and west. I think if I were going to start making ourselves more independent, I'd start by looking more at rural property than suburban. But for a family with an only child, that has its own costs.
Air conditioners are heat pumps. You're moving heat from one place to another. Modern ones are more than 100% efficient. ( They use less than 1 joule of electricity to move 1 joule of heat ) Like...
Air conditioners are heat pumps. You're moving heat from one place to another. Modern ones are more than 100% efficient. ( They use less than 1 joule of electricity to move 1 joule of heat )
Like the article says the problem is they become dramatically more inefficient the greater the temperature gradient they're trying to hold. Holding 75 inside when it's 80 outside, easy. Holding 85 inside when it's 100 outside, exponentially more difficult. And the outside temperature is swinging wider every year.
Housing design is part of the problem though. A single family open floorplan building is dramatically harder to keep at a given temperature than a larger building with more sub rooms that can share thermal mass and split the cost and efficiencies of a more 'industrial sized' cooling unit.
That doesn't accurately answer blindmikey's questions though. Even when they are more then 100% efficient in moving that joule of energy, without an air conditioner that >1 joule would not be...
That doesn't accurately answer blindmikey's questions though. Even when they are more then 100% efficient in moving that joule of energy, without an air conditioner that >1 joule would not be used, which is another >1 joule less of carbon emissions. (Or partial emissions, assuming some renewables in the energy grid)
Even discounting that, there is the climate impact of installing all these ACs, plus the fact that ACs usually run in surges on peak hours of the day, which is harder for renewables to handle.
So yeah, there's a definite climate impact here, in an unfortunate vicious cycle. Like you mention, housing design could solve a lot of this, and of course more trees and other passive cooling systems.
Everyone here is talking about electrical usage, nobody is talking about the GWP of refrigerant, and every AC ever either has a leak or will have a leak. R-410a has a GWP of over 2000, meaning...
Everyone here is talking about electrical usage, nobody is talking about the GWP of refrigerant, and every AC ever either has a leak or will have a leak.
R-410a has a GWP of over 2000, meaning it's 2000x as potent of a green house gas as CO2.
Most common reason your AC is being replaced? It lost its refrigerant to the atmosphere.
It depends on energy usage and where the energy came from. This article is largely about poorly-insulated houses, so yeah, upgrading the air conditioning and not the house would increase energy...
It depends on energy usage and where the energy came from.
This article is largely about poorly-insulated houses, so yeah, upgrading the air conditioning and not the house would increase energy use a lot.
If the housing can’t easily be upgraded, a whole house fan might help for getting trapped hot air out?
I'm in Zone 6 and I want one of these fans so bad, just havent been able too pull the trigger. They make a significant difference on those hot day/cool night combos. I dont know New Orleans...
I'm in Zone 6 and I want one of these fans so bad, just havent been able too pull the trigger. They make a significant difference on those hot day/cool night combos. I dont know New Orleans climate well but not sure it'd work as well down there
A whole house fan is a worthy investment. In my previous house, we had one installed right away, as well as fresh insulation in the ceilings and they both made an incredible difference in the...
A whole house fan is a worthy investment. In my previous house, we had one installed right away, as well as fresh insulation in the ceilings and they both made an incredible difference in the house; being able to have your windows open at night and be sucking in the cool air feels so nice and is much, much better over a whirring AC unit.
We liked it so much, we had one immediately installed when we bought a new house and during these summer months, we use it regularly. Generally I'll turn it on around 6pm or so, when things start feeling noticeably cooler outside and then let it run until about 2-3am, when it'll kick off and in the morning, I'll go through and shut all the windows, which will keep the house pretty cool until about 4pm or so on our regular 90-95*F days. So usually you have a couple of hours where it's pretty hot in the house, especially just after I've cooked dinner and heated up the kitchen, but it's not that long before we can turn on the house fan.
At any rate, the whole house fan wasn't expensive. I think in 2015, with our first house we paid something like $1200 for the fan, plenty of new soffit vents and labor, then in 2018 with the new place, it was around $2000 for a bigger fan and more vents.
We do still need some fresh blown in insulation, which I'm beginning to agitate for, so hopefully that'll come in the next year or two.
A year ago we got AC installed and then around the same time, we put new shingles on the roof. I don't know what's in them but they made a huge difference in the temperature of the house and we...
A year ago we got AC installed and then around the same time, we put new shingles on the roof. I don't know what's in them but they made a huge difference in the temperature of the house and we ended up not needing the AC nearly as much as we planned.
And then in these neighbourhoods, often the result of racial discriminatory policies, in door heat deaths are already happening despite $800 electricity bills and ACs. It's insane to think about....
Some experts have begun to warn of the looming threat of a “Heat Katrina” – a mass-casualty heat event. A study published last year that modeled heatwave-related blackouts in different cities showed that a two-day blackout in Phoenix could lead to the deaths of more than 12,000 people
And then in these neighbourhoods, often the result of racial discriminatory policies, in door heat deaths are already happening despite $800 electricity bills and ACs. It's insane to think about. That first house they talked about where Ida stripped insulation in 2021, it sounds downright dangerous for residents.
If she had a bit of support and money the lady in the article could at least insulate ONE room very well and keep it cool in the hottest days but of course a house without any insulation is going...
If she had a bit of support and money the lady in the article could at least insulate ONE room very well and keep it cool in the hottest days but of course a house without any insulation is going to be unbearably hot.
In our RV, which also isn't well insulated, we have a jerry-rigged AC unit with 4" flexible dryer vent hoses fastened to the cooling vent. When it gets unbearably hot we literally put the hoses under our shirts and have personal AC cooling. It looks goofy as hell but it works great and we dont have to cool off the entire RV to beat the heat.
That picture is actively making things worse than better. Your window unit needs to be able to vent out that waste heat. Putting some shade over it farther away would certainly help. Setting up some of these to shade the house will do wonders. Trees are better, but can take 10 years to be useful, and harder to deploy in super-dry or urban environments.
More trees suburbanites. You need trees protecting your house from the sun in the summer. It'll easily make a 10-20 degree difference.
It would also be helpful to mandate solar roofs over all parking lots, but that's a bigger ask.
Heh, our house has a lot of trees. We had a neighbor who cut all hers down and wanted us to cut ours down. Nope. Our house also stays cooler a lot farther into summer (during spring it can be hot outside and still feel like you need a long sleeve shirt inside the house).
I love our trees :).
What in the ever(green)-loving-fuck?
I will never understand human beings. Trees are incredible helpful Flora and beautiful on top of that. Why would you ever cut them down?
My brother in law chopped his 50 year old tree down because he got tired of cleaning up the fruitfall every summer. The tree was three stories high and gorgeous. It shaded his house perfectly, while being a safe enough distance that it's unlikely the roots were anywhere near the foundation.
It took everyone of those 50 years to grow. And they turned it into firewood. Lo-and-behold they are getting air conditioning this year because it's suddenly too hot in the summer.
Depends on where you live. There are plenty of areas where trees have been planted and grown that really really should not have. It also doesn't help that they tend to be a major pain in the ass to upkeep properly if you're dealing with close quarters plots.
I doubt that's the case in OP's scenario, but it's a pretty reasonable decision when the roots start screwing up driveways and walls, especially if it's not yours.
A valid point. Keep in mind, a lot of yards don't use native flora, or choose trees for landscaping purposes. Our house had two or three tall pine trees that were planted because they grew fast, but that fast growth came at the cost of short roots. One day my mom was looking out the window and saw one just fall over. It wasn't a super windy day or anything, either. Luckily the trees were at the back of our yard, so it didn't hit any houses, but we had to get them removed ASAP.
Trees should be planted with more than aesthetics in mind. Sometimes it's fine, other times it becomes a potential hazard. That said, still not a fan of people cutting down pre-existing native trees when it's not absolutely necessary.
This is what made me finally buy a generator big enough to run the A/C in out house – traditionally we have lost power due to ice in the winter, but the winters were still pretty mild overall and easily survivable with alternative heating. My new model is grid failure in the summer due to ever increasing demand and no investment in grid infrastructure.
A few years ago, Columbus had a major transmission line down for maintenance when a heat wave hit. My sister was out of power for three days.
Will a generator not also fail with extreme heat due to overheating? You're probably better off investing in solar panels and a battery.
I don’t think that’s the case. A difference of 40°F is huge to a person but nothing to an engine block. If anything failed it would be the inverter and other electrical components. Which a solar setup would also have, along with batteries which will want to stay in a specific temperature range that varies by manufacturer. So I don’t think solar is inherently more heat resistant.
I’m sure there are cheapo consumer grade generators out there that would fail in warm weather conditions, but I doubt that’s the norm. At the very least, I have a fair amount of experience with big commercial grade generators and I know those things can operate in all kinds of crazy conditions. So even consumer grade products should be somewhat resilient if they’re designed right.
The main benefit of solar is that you can run it continuously without worry once it’s setup, since it doesn’t need fuel or produce emissions. But if you were purely concerned with emergency power, I probably wouldn’t recommend it just because of the added expense and complexity.
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. About the battery temps though: isn't that pretty consistently between ~ 20 - 25 celsius? That's what I have always heard about EV batteries.
Solar panels and batteries also have issues due to overheating. For solar panels it's what causes the "double peak" during the day where they become too hot to operate at maximum efficiency and their output drops. For batteries it degrades their storage capacity, both in the long and short term.
A gas generator will eventually have problems too, but in the shade, with a radiator and a fan, running for efficiency instead of maximum output, it's going to be a long time coming. Operating temp for an engine is already well over 150 degrees F. You're going to have a mechanical failure because it's been running too long without maintenance well before it overheats because the ambient temp is ~100F.
That's a fair point
That might be a concern (for example) i the southern US where triple digit temps are now the norm. But I live in the northern US, so we're not talking about temperatures so hot the generator will fail. But our grid will fail (or be less reliable) because it wasn't designed for the extra load caused by all the people running their A/C. And only a little increase in temp is needed for that.
Edit: didn't mean to pile on, I was replying from my messages.
I definitely would do solar if we had the space, but we don't have room for the panels we would need for our power capacity.
Could you elaborate on why you wouldn't have enough room? I am imagening an average NA suburban house, and that would probably work, but that is a complete guess of course.
I can't speak to their specific case, but the further away from the equator you go, you have less sunlight exposure overall since you get more sunlight exposure south-facing and there aren't as many hours in the day where there is sunlight. I have a friend who has solar panels on his house, and he only has them on the south facing of his house because that's where the most sunlight exposure occurs in our region and he tells me that it doesn't cover all his electricity usage, and he has invested a bit in energy efficiency in his home so it's not like he has super high demands of electricity (though he does have an electric car to charge too).
I'm in the Pacific NW, no south facing roof. My panels (and batteries) cut down an electric bill of ~$140/mo to ~90/yr. Most utilities up here will credit you 1kwh per contributed 1kwh. Those credits build in the summer and help cut costs in the winter. I also get credit for letting the utility here take from my batteries during peak hours on specified days (only a handful throughout the year).
All that to say, lack of southern facing roof space in the NW isn't much of a barrier to entry.
I am curious, if you're willing to say, what was the up front investment for your system like? I can see the benefit of this from reducing utility costs and simply being more green.
Since the original context of this was being able to sustain oneself through a power outage, what would your setup provide in that situation? Like if the grid is down, or has rolling blackouts due to overload, could you cut down to essentials and ride out a few days on panels and batteries?
It sounds like the latter wasn't your reason for investing in it, so I'm not trying to knock it, just curious to hear from you as someone who actually has experience with it.
Yeah, that sounds fair enough.
Our house has a pretty compact footprint (two stories and a basement), so the roof area is small. We have relatively cloudy weather and are at a higher altitude, so less solar intensity. Putting them in the non–shady part of our yard would pretty much eliminate the ability for kids to play in it.
Fair enough. Have you considered using Solar panels on/as fencing? I've heard some pretty positive results from that. I've even heard that vertical panels can be more efficient than angled ones.
Our lot is pretty small, about 1/4 of an acre. We share a fence line on three sides, and about half of the fence line is in tree shade. The unshaded parts of the fence face east and west. I think if I were going to start making ourselves more independent, I'd start by looking more at rural property than suburban. But for a family with an only child, that has its own costs.
Am I wrong in thinking that air conditioning is also further causing climate change?
Air conditioners are heat pumps. You're moving heat from one place to another. Modern ones are more than 100% efficient. ( They use less than 1 joule of electricity to move 1 joule of heat )
Like the article says the problem is they become dramatically more inefficient the greater the temperature gradient they're trying to hold. Holding 75 inside when it's 80 outside, easy. Holding 85 inside when it's 100 outside, exponentially more difficult. And the outside temperature is swinging wider every year.
Housing design is part of the problem though. A single family open floorplan building is dramatically harder to keep at a given temperature than a larger building with more sub rooms that can share thermal mass and split the cost and efficiencies of a more 'industrial sized' cooling unit.
That doesn't accurately answer blindmikey's questions though. Even when they are more then 100% efficient in moving that joule of energy, without an air conditioner that >1 joule would not be used, which is another >1 joule less of carbon emissions. (Or partial emissions, assuming some renewables in the energy grid)
Even discounting that, there is the climate impact of installing all these ACs, plus the fact that ACs usually run in surges on peak hours of the day, which is harder for renewables to handle.
So yeah, there's a definite climate impact here, in an unfortunate vicious cycle. Like you mention, housing design could solve a lot of this, and of course more trees and other passive cooling systems.
Everyone here is talking about electrical usage, nobody is talking about the GWP of refrigerant, and every AC ever either has a leak or will have a leak.
R-410a has a GWP of over 2000, meaning it's 2000x as potent of a green house gas as CO2.
Most common reason your AC is being replaced? It lost its refrigerant to the atmosphere.
It depends on energy usage and where the energy came from.
This article is largely about poorly-insulated houses, so yeah, upgrading the air conditioning and not the house would increase energy use a lot.
If the housing can’t easily be upgraded, a whole house fan might help for getting trapped hot air out?
Whole house fan might make sense if you live in a dry climate. If you live in a humid climate, it might not be all that helpful in the long run.
I'm in Zone 6 and I want one of these fans so bad, just havent been able too pull the trigger. They make a significant difference on those hot day/cool night combos. I dont know New Orleans climate well but not sure it'd work as well down there
A whole house fan is a worthy investment. In my previous house, we had one installed right away, as well as fresh insulation in the ceilings and they both made an incredible difference in the house; being able to have your windows open at night and be sucking in the cool air feels so nice and is much, much better over a whirring AC unit.
We liked it so much, we had one immediately installed when we bought a new house and during these summer months, we use it regularly. Generally I'll turn it on around 6pm or so, when things start feeling noticeably cooler outside and then let it run until about 2-3am, when it'll kick off and in the morning, I'll go through and shut all the windows, which will keep the house pretty cool until about 4pm or so on our regular 90-95*F days. So usually you have a couple of hours where it's pretty hot in the house, especially just after I've cooked dinner and heated up the kitchen, but it's not that long before we can turn on the house fan.
At any rate, the whole house fan wasn't expensive. I think in 2015, with our first house we paid something like $1200 for the fan, plenty of new soffit vents and labor, then in 2018 with the new place, it was around $2000 for a bigger fan and more vents.
We do still need some fresh blown in insulation, which I'm beginning to agitate for, so hopefully that'll come in the next year or two.
A year ago we got AC installed and then around the same time, we put new shingles on the roof. I don't know what's in them but they made a huge difference in the temperature of the house and we ended up not needing the AC nearly as much as we planned.
This is a great comment. Building materials matter, people.
If they're lighter colored, that probably helps reflect more sunlight.
And then in these neighbourhoods, often the result of racial discriminatory policies, in door heat deaths are already happening despite $800 electricity bills and ACs. It's insane to think about. That first house they talked about where Ida stripped insulation in 2021, it sounds downright dangerous for residents.
Just read a book where a heat wave in India kills millions over a few days and ends up being the catalyst to meaningful action on climate change.
Hah, I also just finished the Ministry for the Future. Lots of headlines bring that book to mind afterwards.
If she had a bit of support and money the lady in the article could at least insulate ONE room very well and keep it cool in the hottest days but of course a house without any insulation is going to be unbearably hot.
In our RV, which also isn't well insulated, we have a jerry-rigged AC unit with 4" flexible dryer vent hoses fastened to the cooling vent. When it gets unbearably hot we literally put the hoses under our shirts and have personal AC cooling. It looks goofy as hell but it works great and we dont have to cool off the entire RV to beat the heat.