The top wirecutter recommendation is roughly 3x as expensive as the Amazon AC being reviewed. The top budget pick is a single-hose model.
People usually want to cool the room they are spending their time in. Those ACs are marketed to cool a 300 sq ft room, not a whole home. That’s what reviewers are clearly doing with the unit.
I’d guess that in extreme cases (where you care about the room with AC no more than other rooms in the house + rest of house is cool) consumers are overestimating efficiency by ~30%. On average in reality I’d guess they are overestimating value-added by the air conditioner by more like ~10% (since the AC’d room will be cooler and they care less about other rooms).
I think the OP is misleading if 10% is what’s at stake and there are real considerations on the other side.
I think there is very little chance that the wirecutter reviewers don’t understand that infiltration affects heating efficiency. However I agree that your preferences about AC, and the interpretation of their tests, depend on how hot the rest of the building is (and how much you care about keeping it cool). I’m 50-50 on whether someone from the wirecutter would be able to explain that issue if pressed.
This AC does not report SACC BTU, though many of the top-rated ACs list both (4/6 of the other ones I checked from the “4 stars and above related products”). I agree that some consumers won’t see this number.
The internet will tell you to use a 10,000 BTU portable AC for a 300 sq ft room (in line with the recommendation on Amazon’s page) and a 6500 BTU window AC. That is, the “300 sq ft” number and normal internet folklore are mostly taking into account these issues.
The AC in question does report CEER which I still think includes this issue. It has a quite mediocre CEER of 6.6. It describes this as “super efficient” which is obviously false.
Note that non-SACC BTU ratings are mostly only a problem when looking at comparisons of single-hose to double-hose AC (since e.g. googling portable AC sizing or looking at recommended sq footage takes this issue into account), and so what mostly matters is whether the Amazon page for a double-hose AC makes this argument in a way that lets it win comparison-shopping customers.
The top wirecutter recommendation is roughly 3x as expensive as the Amazon AC being reviewed. The top budget pick is a single-hose model.
People usually want to cool the room they are spending their time in. Those ACs are marketed to cool a 300 sq ft room, not a whole home. That’s what reviewers are clearly doing with the unit.
I’d guess that in extreme cases (where you care about the room with AC no more than other rooms in the house + rest of house is cool) consumers are overestimating efficiency by ~30%. On average in reality I’d guess they are overestimating value-added by the air conditioner by more like ~10% (since the AC’d room will be cooler and they care less about other rooms).
I think the OP is misleading if 10% is what’s at stake and there are real considerations on the other side.
I think there is very little chance that the wirecutter reviewers don’t understand that infiltration affects heating efficiency. However I agree that your preferences about AC, and the interpretation of their tests, depend on how hot the rest of the building is (and how much you care about keeping it cool). I’m 50-50 on whether someone from the wirecutter would be able to explain that issue if pressed.
This AC does not report SACC BTU, though many of the top-rated ACs list both (4/6 of the other ones I checked from the “4 stars and above related products”). I agree that some consumers won’t see this number.
The internet will tell you to use a 10,000 BTU portable AC for a 300 sq ft room (in line with the recommendation on Amazon’s page) and a 6500 BTU window AC. That is, the “300 sq ft” number and normal internet folklore are mostly taking into account these issues.
The AC in question does report CEER which I still think includes this issue. It has a quite mediocre CEER of 6.6. It describes this as “super efficient” which is obviously false.
Note that non-SACC BTU ratings are mostly only a problem when looking at comparisons of single-hose to double-hose AC (since e.g. googling portable AC sizing or looking at recommended sq footage takes this issue into account), and so what mostly matters is whether the Amazon page for a double-hose AC makes this argument in a way that lets it win comparison-shopping customers.
What an argument about air conditioners :)