Well after placing a few bids on eBay, I got a result.

It took me a couple of days because I wanted to stay at less than a hundred quid because there was so much on offer – not only that I can go down to B&Q and buy a new machine for about £160.

Anyway I won two auctions, both for portable mono-bloc units. One in Cambridge and the other 40 minutes drive away, so I whipped out during the evening on Saturday and picked both up.

For £60 I got a nice compact unit that is a just over 2 feet tall and sucks out 8000BTU of heat and for £32 I got an older unit that is almost 3 feet tall and quite a beast of a machine that will swallow 12000BTU

I thought the small machine would be more than ample, with the vent pipe stuck out through a gap in the door to the garden, I should be feeling just cool. But no, the thing is on ALL the time and I can’t get below about 25 degrees.

So a quick shuffle around and I brought in the mega beast with 12000BTU cooling – WOW I’m down at 23 degrees and this baby is cycling on and off nicely. Any cooler and I’m going to freeze in the breeze!

So there we have it, a couple of days later and my eBay account put to good use and I’m back in business. Now I just need a break in this cloudy (believe it or not) weather and I can go gliding for the day (another benefit of working for yourself at home!)

Tags: Gliding, Lifestyle, Working at Home by Tony
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Boy it hit 30 degrees today and with the computers in my home office, I was just too hot and I was not able to concentrate on what I was doing. Even with the garden doors wide open, it was still unpleasant.

At our last house I had an air conditioning system installed that had separate compressors for my office and for our master bedroom and it was great. However we weren’t convinced that we really needed it and so we didn’t bother having a system installed at our new place.

Last summer was nice, but this year is proving to be hot, hot, hot. I need to cool down and I need to do it fast – so what for a solution? Well straight to good old eBay I just went and boy there are plenty of entries in there for both mono-bloc systems (all in one and wheel them around) and for split systems (stick the compressor and one heat exchanger outside). Not only that, I can pick up a complete system in a couple of boxes if I want and get someone to install it for me.

Well I have put bids on a couple of units, one a mono-bloc and another a brand new split system. Let’s see what happens!

Tags: Lifestyle, Working at Home by Tony
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