weather

ProBreeze portable air conditioner review

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A photo of our ProBreeze portable air conditioner

Phew, it’s been a bit warm, hasn’t it? I was planning to write this review in a few weeks time, but seeing as we’re experiencing a heatwave in England right now, I’ve brought it forward in case you’re considering purchasing an air conditioner yourself.

Earlier this year, we bought a ProBreeze 4-in-1 portable smart air conditioner, and this week, it’s finally been warm enough to put it through its paces for a review. We went with this model as it was a Which Best Buy, and relatively cheap – £250 for refurbished model direct from ProBreeze. Also, I was able to pay for it in three instalments using Klarna, so I’ve actually only just finished paying for it. It’s available from Amazon (sponsored link), but unsurprisingly appears to have sold out.

There are cheaper models from other manufacturers – Terence Eden reviewed this one which cost him about £160 in March.

Setting it up

For an air conditioner to work correctly, you need to be able to pump the hot air out of the room. So, the air conditioner comes with a chonky hose, that you can poke out of a window.

However, to stop the hot air from coming back in again through the open window, there’s a window sealing kit included. This consists of a series of sticky-backed velcro strips, that you attach to your window and frame, and a membrane with velcro edges and a zip with which to make a hole for the exhaust hose to poke through. There’s also a more rigid plastic slidy thing for use with sash windows, if you want to pretend you live in Ecuador.

Part of the reason why I’ve not written this review until now is because the provided hose wasn’t long enough to reach the opening of our window. Our house is at least 100 years old, with nice big windows, and when the previous owners had double glazing installed, they insisted on windows which opened at the top. I ended up buying a longer hose, and some additional velcro strips, from AliExpress to reach the window.

Taking the sealing kit off and on again is a bit of a faff, to be honest. We’ll be leaving it on until the weather’s due to get cooler again on Sunday.

Using the air conditioner

I’m going to cover the disadvantages first:

  • It’s quite noisy
  • It’s more expensive to run than a fan

However, it did manage to cool our bedroom down very quickly. We’ve been using it in the evenings, and then switching it off at bedtime. I don’t think we would want it on all night due to the noise.

In terms of the cost of running, expect to spend 20-30 pence per hour to run it. As we’re a day away from the Summer Solstice, we still had sunlight late into the evening last night and so it didn’t actually cost us anything (thank you, solar panels and battery) other than reduced export.

You should also plug it directly into the wall, where possible, and not use extension leads. Because it draws a lot of power, you risk damaging your plugs and/or causing a fire with extension leads. Which would be terrible and also an incredibly ironic way to lose your house, seeing as an air conditioner is supposed to cool it down and not set fire to it.

Hello Tuya, my old frenemy

The ProBreeze air conditioner we bought is also a smart appliance. So although you can control it using buttons on the front, and the included remote control, it can also be controlled using an app or Google Assistant and Alexa.

However, the app in question is Tuya’s Smart Life app. Regular readers will know that I’m not Tuya’s biggest fan (pun not intended) but it seems to work okay, and easily integrates with Home Assistant through the official Tuya integration.

Maybe in future I can take it apart and flash the chip with something else to use it locally, but seeing as I’ve only just finished paying for it, I’ll leave it be for now.

The other three functions

I mentioned that it’s a four in one device. As well as air conditioning, this ProBreeze device can also act as a dehumidifier, and as a simple fan without a cooling mode. I think the fourth mode is a quieter ‘sleep’ mode for use at night. It’s still quite noisy in fan mode, even when it’s not actively trying to cool the air in your room. I believe it’s now branded as a ‘three-in-one’ device.

How it compares to a fan

A simple fan may cool you down, by blowing sweat away from your skin, but it doesn’t actually cool down the air in the room. That’s where air conditioning and air cooling devices come in. Air coolers are usually simpler and cheaper, whereas air conditioning units are more powerful.

Air conditioning at home is still something of a novelty to Brits. We’re not used to hot weather, and our homes are usually designed to retain heat to get us through cold winters. An air conditioning device is therefore unlikely to get much use all year round, but it’s made a difference over these past few days. I’ve glad we’ve bought one – even if it is a bit expensive to run, noisy and a faff to set up the window sealing kit. Anything for a good’s night sleep.

Well this weather is rather lovely

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A photo of some trees with plenty of blossom

It’s been a particularly good Spring, hasn’t it? Lots and lots of sunshine, warm daytime temperatures, and almost no rain. It’s almost like the lovely Spring that we had in 2020, but without the lockdown restrictions. As such, we’ve been able to enjoy it a bit more.

As solar panel owners, it’s been particularly welcome. In March, our solar panel system saved us £50 by not needing to import energy from the grid, and we exported another £25 of excess electricity. And this month, despite us not being halfway through yet, we’ve already exported £25 of electricity. Overall, we’ve certainly exported far more than we’ve used from the grid. However, we’re having some issues with our smart electric meter not reporting usage, and so I’m not able to properly quantify this yet.

Although it’s been cold at nights, we’re still using less gas and electric than we would typically use at this time of year thanks to the nice weather. It’s been warmer during the day, and we’ve been able to dry more laundry outside too. We haven’t used our heated drying rack for a few weeks now.

Energy prices

Speaking of energy prices, I’m hoping that this will mean that Ofgem’s Energy Price Cap will go down when it changes again in July. The warmer weather should have reduced the use of gas central heating, and the increased contribution of solar energy will have reduced the amount of gas that’s burned to generate electricity. Seeing as it’s mainly wholesale gas prices that drive the price cap calculations, reduced demand for gas will hopefully see the price cap fall.

Hosepipe bans

It’s been that long since it rained that I can’t remember the last wet day that we had. Which has been good for getting out and about, but not so good for keeping the reservoirs topped up. Rain is forecast for next week, but if the general trend is for lots of hot dry days, then I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with a hosepipe ban in the summer.

If you want to plan now for a hosepipe ban and don’t already have a water butt to store excess rainwater, consider getting one from Save Water Save Money. Pop your postcode in to find out if you can get one subsidised by your water company. They’re at least £10 cheaper than elsewhere, as long as you’re prepared to wait around six weeks for delivery. We haven’t invested in one yet (we need additional work doing on our guttering) but it’s something to consider.

One thing we have bought in response to the warm weather has been a portable air conditioning unit. British homes are not typically built with air conditioning systems (and our house is around 100 years old in any case). Whilst the nights have been cold, I’m fully expecting that, if this good weather continues, there will be some hot nights on the way. A standard pedestal fan can help keep you cool by blowing away sweat, but it can’t cool the air in a room. Once it’s arrived and I’ve had time to evaluate it, I’ll do a blog post.

Snow longer welcome

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A photo of a snowy scene, taken from our house

I can’t remember a time that there’s been snow on the ground for eight days straight. It’s certainly not happened in my adult life; it may have happened when I was much younger, perhaps in the late 1980s or early 1990s. But the heavy snow that we had last Sunday has stuck around for over a week now, thanks to low temperatures that have prevented it all from melting.

I’m writing this yesterday (Sunday 11th January) and it’s probable that most of the snow will start to melt today (Monday). Yesterday (Sunday), the temperatures reached a ‘dizzying high’ of 4° C (39° F), which is the warmest it’s been all week. Meanwhile, night-time temperatures have apparently dropped as low as -10° C (14° F).

Suffice to say, it’s been an interesting week. The school that our nine-year-old attends announced it would be closed on Monday. As it’s the 21st century, thankfully this wasn’t a case of listening to local radio, but a message via the parents’ app just after 7am. Also, as it’s the 21st century and in the years following a pandemic, us parents were provided with the schoolwork that our kids would be doing if they were in school. I booked last minute annual leave with my (thankfully) understanding employer, and we got to work. Thankfully, most of it was Maths, and so not something I struggle with.

Tuesday was a return to relative normality as the school re-opened, but many other local schools remained closed throughout last week (some are still closed today, as in Monday). I even made it into the office on Tuesday, as the trains were running with almost no delays. However, many of my colleagues didn’t, and those of us that did were advised to head home mid-afternoon. We’ve then spent the rest of the week working remotely. I am very pleased that we have this option.

A photo of our In Home Display, showing £64.03 spent on gas this week.

Temperatures should continue to rise, and so whilst there will probably still be snow on the ground this morning, at least we won’t also have ice to contend with. And I’m hoping our heating bills will come down too; as per the photo above, we had spent over £64 on gas this week alone. Some of this is because we were home more, but also because of how cold it was outside.

So, here’s looking forward to some warmer weather. The snow has been fun for a while, but it has outstayed its welcome.

Storm Bert

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Yesterday, Storm Bert came to visit us, and delivered quite a lot of snow, followed by significantly more rain.

In some respects, we were lucky that temperatures rose as quickly as they did yesterday, as that later rain could have been more heavy snow. As it was, once the snow started to thaw and the gritters and snowploughs were able to get out, we were able to get on and do most of the things that we would normally do on a Saturday.

However, the rapid snow melt and heavy rain could cause some more problems. There’s flood alerts for the River Calder and River Ryburn in Sowerby Bridge. We’ve seen the Calder rise steadily over the day and are keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t result in a repeat of Storm Eva at the end of 2015. There’s been a lot of flood defence work that has taken place in the (almost) nine years since then, including Slow the Flow, a project to boost natural flood defences in upland areas to prevent the rivers from being inundated during storms. Alas, further up the valley, the new multi-million pound flood defences weren’t enough to stop flooding in Todmorden and Mytholmroyd, although it hasn’t been as bad as 2015 or 2020 so far.

It doesn’t help that we had snow earlier in the week, followed by persistent cold weather. There was a reasonable snow fall on Monday night, which by the time it snowed again on Thursday was still lingering on the ground. More snow fell yesterday but it’s almost all gone now. Meteorologically speaking, November is considered an autumn month in the northern hemisphere, so to have this much snow before winter has ‘officially’ started is concerning. And this is the second named storm of the year, too. This isn’t ‘normal’ weather by any existing definition, and I hope it doesn’t become the new ‘normal’.

At least, unlike with Storm Lillian in August, we didn’t get a power cut this time.

Storm Lilian

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On Friday, the UK was visited by Storm Lilian, the twelfth storm of the season (which runs until the end of this week). And it took out our electricity supply.

I was all ready to start my working day at home, when my screen went black. I use a laptop, so that was still running, but with no internet and a rapidly depleting battery. This was around 8:30am.

Thankfully, almost instantly a text from Northern Powergrid, the privatised company that runs the local electricity distribution network, informed me that they were aware of the problem. But a fix wasn’t likely until 10am, and August is my busiest month of the year at work. As rush hour had passed, I could be in my office in half an hour if I drove, so I got in the car and drove to work.

This turned out to be the right decision, as when I got to work, another text arrived, this time advising it would be 6pm before the power would be back on. As it was, everything was up and running again by 1pm, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve known a power cut last for over four hours. It turns out we were one of around 36,000 people without power in the Northern Powergrid area. Thankfully, nothing in our fridge or freezer spoiled.

Whilst we do have a massive battery in our cellar, linked to our solar panels, this doesn’t automatically kick in if there’s a power cut. Instead, we have two dedicated sockets that run off the battery. I did try running an extension cable from there to the fridge-freezer, but it didn’t seem to do anything, so I plugged the fridge-freezer back into the mains and left for work.

As mentioned, Storm Lilian is the twelfth named storm of the season, and it’s the first time since the storms were named in 2015 that we’ve reached the letter L. The season ends this Saturday and so we probably won’t experience Storm Minnie, but the fact that we’ve had this many storms over the past 12 months is rather worrying. Is this going to be the new normal with climate change, and are we going to experience more power cuts like this one?

App of the week: Carrot Weather

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A screenshot of Carrot Weather on iOS

There’s no shortage of weather apps for the iPhone – indeed, it ships with one out of the box. But Carrot Weather is probably the only app that also insults you as well.

Carrot Weather is one of a suite of five apps which are primarily focussed around productivity. There’s a to-do list app, an alarm app, a fitness app, a calorie counter app, and this weather app. What the Carrot apps have in common is a sadistic, judgemental artificial intelligence feature that rewards you for good habits, but insults you if you displease it. So if you don’t complete your tasks on time, don’t meet your fitness goals or sleep in, then Carrot gets angry, and you’ll have to work hard to make her happy again. Her AI is not too dissimilar from GLaDOS, the antagonist of the Portal games series.

Because Carrot Weather isn’t based around objectives, you don’t need to worry too much about upsetting Carrot, but she will still make wry comments about the weather.

The app defaults to showing the weather conditions based on your current location, and the home screen shows the temperature, wind speed, conditions and an overview for the next hour. If it’s raining, it’ll indicate when it’s due to stop, or vice versa. It’s possible to set various other favourite locations, if you want to see what the weather is like elsewhere.

You can also swipe left to see the conditions over the next few hours, and again for a three day summary. Swipe up, and extra detail such as air pressure, visibility, humidity and UV index are available. This information can also appear as a widget in the notification centre, and you can customise how much data is shown.

As long as the mute switch is off, Carrot Weather will also use your phone’s text-to-speech function to speak her comments to you. She will also get angry if you keep tapping on her ‘ocular sensor’, which is the glowing circle that shows the current weather conditions, so, you know, don’t do that.

As you use Carrot Weather over time, various hidden features will unlock. This includes the weather for various fictional locations, such as Mount Doom, where it’s apparently 47° Celsius. I thought it’d be a bit warmer, personally.

If you like an app that’s a bit different and has a sense of humour, then I can recommend Carrot Weather. It’s certainly more fun to use than the weather app that ships with the iPhone.

Carrot Weather costs £2.99, and is a universal app available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.