Air conditioning units.

They can be pretty noisy and I believe not cheap to run.

We have one that we have had for years can't remember where we bought it or how much it cost. We have not really looked at how expensive it is to run because it gets used so infrequently. All I can say is that it has really helped the last couple of nights during this extreme heat and it will be going on again tonight before we go to bed. It really does chill the bedroom and makes it more comfortable to sleep.

We have one in the conservatory. It’s about 15 years old, we put it on to eat our tea in there if the afternoon is very hot.

Probably on for about 20 minutes. Efficient. No idea how much it costs to run, but not used very often. If it’s really hot, like today, we don’t eat in there.

My daughter has one her bedroom is beautifully cool
Just looking into purchasing one she has sent me details expect to pay £300 ish for a decent one will be good for our office to stop employees melting

I haven't but our next-door neighbours at our previous house had one installed as part of the major renovations. I have no idea how well it worked for them but the heat exchange unit was in the passageway between our houses despite me asking them to put it somewhere else.
It wasn't particularly noisy - a low hum - but hot air blew into my kitchen if I had the door open and into the upstairs landing if that window was open.

If you are installing a big one rather than a freestanding one please consider your neighbours!

We have reversible heating / aircon units in our converted barn, one upstairs, one down. Our main heating downstairs is underfloor which is great, but not flexible. In practice we use the downstairs one for heating in autumn and spring and the upstairs one for aircon in summer. We have no near neighbours to be affected by the outside unit.
Even at 39° yesterday we have only needed the upstairs one, running at a steady 21°.

I believe with today's current electricity prices a 10kW unit would be about 40p per hour. If you ran it just at night that's £25 per week to your bill. Prices are going up soon !

Use a fan for same length of time and the cost is about £2 a week.

It certainly isn't noisy. I think this week our electricity cost about 12€ more than the week before, but we have also just had the charger for our electric car installed!
We are in France and our electricity is a lot cheaper than the UK.

With the cost of electricity so high and set to go up I'll give it a miss. I'm just too mean to spend money on what you might call 'instant gratification'. If we had prolonged heatwaves then maybe, but that would be even more expensive. I guess it's the same issue with heating. Are we going to heat our homes this winter when the cost will be so high? For both heating and air conditioning we will be paying a lot, so depends on how wealthy you are.

The unit cooling the whole of upstairs ran for 16 hours yesterday and cost 1€27. The temperature outside ranged between 25-39°.

Son has solar panels, so can run the air conditioning when the sun shines for free.

Way to go!

We pay 19 cents per kw in the day and 14 cents for night rate.
Yes we have a perfect south facing roof for solar panels and we will get round to it!

Thank you for your input. Think it all depends on the price of running it and how often it is needed. Depends on how often and for how long these heatwaves continue. They sound great if you can afford it.

They are high demand items that require a lot of energy to keep running.

The average air conditioner uses 1.3kw of power, and the average solar panel system ranges from 2kw to 4kw.
Some units use up to 2.5kw, leaving very little or none of that free energy for anything else.

Every year I say I will buy one then when it gets hot, they sell out! I really must but one out of season and have it ready for the few days a year when it’s hot at night.

So, tonight at 1.45 am, I cannot sleep, my feet are burning despite just having put them in a bucket of cold water. Fan is on by me bed with a frozen water bottle in front of it - it’s fine on my face but then my body is hot, when directed at my body or feet, my fave is too not! Bedroom window now open despite sleeping in a front downstairs room ( bungalow) AND ITS STILL TOO HOT TO SLEEP!

I’m trying not to fret about a meeting I have to go to at 10am tomorrow and just drift off but the beads of sweat running down my face and neck are distracting me!

Ah well, it’s going to be cooler tomorrow so I’ll be able to catch up my sleep then.

And next heatwave, I’ll have an air con unit!

Sorry for all the typos, I really do need some sleep!