anyone who lives in hk is familiar with this kind of building facade - a hung out bracket with a box-like a/c
<-- thanks to you, the legendary window type a/c
the bulk shaped white appliance takes a part of your wall/ window area in almost every building in hk. even if it's relative small, average front area is around 470mm x 345mm h, it's still annoying that you have to compensate the window area where the light could have brighten up your home, or a part of your wall where you could have decorate it together with other paintings or decors.
due to the limited residential areas, central-control a/c system or cassette ones is very rarely seen in apartments in hk. there's are two common types of substitutes, split type a/c and split window type a/c.
those a/c outer units placed on an overhang at the building envelope indicate the usage of split type a/c.
literally, split type a/c has one inner unit and one outer unit. the slim designed inner unit has a better flexibility of placement, compared to window type a/c.
however, the installation procedure usually evolves issues.
if your current apartment has window type a/c, usually it means you don't have existing overhang at your outer wall to support the a/c's outer unit. so you need to build it with steel bracket only or steel concrete shelf. it costs labor for both scaffolding work and installations.
meanwhile, you have to be really careful with the in-house rules from facility management office of your building. sometimes they won't allow you to add/reduce anything on the existing facade.
if above situation happens, what can you do? you might be asking yourself.
there's another special design that mixes split type a/c and window type a/c. it's called split window type a/c.....
the mixed baby - split window type a/c looks exactly like split type a/c.
the only difference is that its outer unit is much smaller. so it can be placed at the original window area for window a/c, so you don't have to worry about the facility management rules or scaffolding costs. it's cheap and easy and completely doable. at the same time you can have the inner unit like split a/c. if they are left as they are in the photo, it would look very ugly and not completed.
you can use a painting or other wall decorations to cover it up.
in this photo, the left one is typical window type a/c, while the right one is typical split window type a/c.
in our recent kennedy town project, we use wood joist to cover both units on the wall. the wood joist is evenly placed with air gap so the window type a/c can work properly and meanwhile, it looks good on both units to match the style.
-the end-