13 Apr 2010 6:09 PM:
Hi,
I'm in a detached house in Javea region (Costa Blanca). Apartments & Town houses may be different from my experience.
We have both A/C & ceiling fans in all the bedrooms. We had the A/C installed before moving into the house and before we had any experience. The ceiling fans I installed later and are excellent for cooling. They keep you cool and are quiet when operating during the night. I run the fan all night in the bedroom when sleeping if required. Sometimes if it gets too cool during the night I need to turn the fan off.
Fans are a lot cheaper to install and run compared to A/C.
I have A/C also in the living & dining room that I use occasionly.
I paid approx 150-200 euros for each light/fan (it's a comnbined unit) as I wanted to be sure they'd be quiet when running. I didn't want any motor noise.
The A/C units have been usful for heating purposes during the colder months, which there are several of them. Energy is expensive in Spain and the typical levels of house insulation is not good. Small separate free standing heaters could have covered this need at a much lower cost.
The A/C can be good when you come out of the shower/getting dressed to go out and do not want to end up like you need another shower due to the air temperature being hot in the summer.
If I was starting again, I would not install the A/C units. The ceiling fans would be all I'd install. Which I did myself as it's almost the same as installing a new light onto the existing ceiling light position.
If you're not sure and want to delay the decision, have the A/C infrastucure pre-installed but don't buy all the A/C units. Then you can decide at a later date if you want/need to install all the A/C units. As all the work has been performed on the walls in the rooms, then it will be relatovely easy to have the actual A/C units installed. Any good plumber can take you through this option.
Hope this helps.
Thread:
Air Conditioning V ceiling fans, or both
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