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Comment by phicoh | Hacker News Reader

The situation with respect to condensation: look at historical data for the dew point during the summer season. That as low as you can get. For example, I'm in The Netherlands and our system is set to 18 degrees Celsius.

The amount of cooling this way is limited. Though the nice thing is that it tends to keep the house cool. There is no cold airflow.

With respect to government grants. Sometimes you can buy units that can only heat to get the grant. But a simple change enables cooling after the unit is installed.

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In the UK, dew point highs will peak above 22 degrees multiple times per year, so the safe temperature to cool to is something like 25 degrees.

Might provide some benefits on really hot days, but it’s still uncomfortably warm for working in.

Do you have any source that it is 22 degrees for the entire UK? That seems unlikely.

There is no reason to set all units to the same value in the entire country.

You can also just look up what the dew point is on any particular day, and adjust your temperature.

In general, if you want to save money, you should set your aircon to the highest temperature you can tolerate. We typically operate at 26-28C at home here in Singapore, and our dew point is typically between 24-26C.

The modest reduction in air temperature from 30-33C outside feels amplified, because the aircon also reduces humidity. We also rely heavily on ceiling fans.

25 is fine for me to work in; it's about 27 that I start to need to take stronger measures to cool off.

That said, I'm guessing 22 (or 18 or whatever) is the lowest temperature you can have on the pipes; that wouldn't translate to 22 in the house.

Depends on how your aircon is working?

If their working fluid is water, you are right. But most aircons work like fridges, and their pipes don't transport 'cold' by literally having a cold fluid, but by having an ambient temperature fluid that they turn into a gas inside your interior aircon unit (and then later turn back from a gas into a liquid on the outside unit).

The actual pipes are always at pretty much ambient temperatures.

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