regarding air conditioning

[14m1337]

hi there,

I'm wondering how many free spaces the electrical air conditioning needs to be effective...
How many spaces do I need to keep it working ? 1/2/3 ? Or does it really have to be connected to outside ?
My colony is dug into a giant mountain, and I want to keep the room at ~21°C

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[Serenity]

If your hallways are relatively large and connected to other rooms by doors, you can vent right into them. It's also possible to vent into the hallways and then vent the hallway outside. But I'm not sure how efficient that is.

Just one or two squares are definitely not enough though, unless those squares are "outside" (unroofed)

[crazybmanp]

technically, a large enough area connected to the hot side of an aircon will let it equalize to the outdoors, I'm not sure at what point that is. Overhead mountains are pretty good at insulating. It is just easier to vent it outdoors.

[14m1337]

I'm digging maintenance tunnels with a direct connection to the outside, but that's kinda annoying. guess I'm gonna have a try with the 1/2/3 square solution myself.
I really was hoping that there's someone here who already experimented with that.

[SilentP]

I can tell you from experience a 3 x 6 square will accept the exhaust from 2 AC units.  It gets up to roughly 200°F in there, but it works.

[Zhentar]

The capacity of coolers depends upon the temperature delta between the hot and cold side, reaching zero at a 130C difference. A freezer cooler venting into a 200F room is running at less than 30% capacity!

[defensestar]

Damn you and your interspersing Temperature systems

[DuckBoy]

Just make a tiny exhaust room -- wall off an area and remove the roof.  Unless you're under a mountain...

[carbon]

As DuckBoy said, but it does seem to need a minimum unroofed area for that to work effectively. A few alphas ago one could make a 1x1 unroofed 'heat chimney' and vent four coolers into it with no issue. That no longer equilibrates with the outside fast enough to work.

There's a minimum unroof size, then a room always matches the outside temperature regardless of how much heat you pump in.