The short story
- Arrange a breeze blowing through the unit if the outside temperature is not too high or the outside humidity is not too high. Otherwise close doors and windows and turn on the air conditioning.
- The air conditioning system is turned on by changing the side knob on the control unit located near the door to the hallway. Set it to a desired fan speed (the smallest fan speed usually works well enough).
- Set desired temperature using the top knob. The temperature will not go below 23 degrees Celsius even if you set the desired temperature lower.
- Always keep doors and windows shut when operating the air conditioning system. This is important!
- Always turn off the air conditioning system when you leave the unit for more than 12 hours.
The long story
An alternative to start the air conditioning unit is to open the glass door to the main balcony and do the same on the two smaller bedrooms. You can also open a window in the Esplanade bedroom. This will often create a nice breeze blowing through the unit. This is often enough when the outside temperature is not too high or the outside humidity is not too high. Otherwise close doors and windows and turn on the air conditioning.
Cold water from a central rooftop facility is pumped down to each unit. A sensor and a valve within each unit decides to turn on or off cold water into the air conditioning system within the unit. Hence, the fan system within the unit always operates and circulates the air within the unit when the air conditioning system is turned on. However, it alternates between cooling the air during recirculation or to simply recirculate without cooling. The thermostat setting and the temperature sensor regulates this.
Setting it on the small fan is usually efficient enough. Increasing the fan speed to medium or high may cool the unit quicker but it will still not go below 23 degrees Celsius. A higher fan speed creates more noise.
The air conditioning unit is serviced every 6 months and is usually very reliable. It is usually a roof top issue affecting all units in the building those very few occasions where the air conditioning equipment fails. Please contact the reception if it fails to get the temperature down to around 23-24 degrees Celsius.
Keping doors or windows open while operating the air conditioning system means the air conditioning system will be overloaded with more warm and humid air than it can handle. It can cause technical problems and malfunction and also… …the unit stays warm and humid.. Hence, always have doors and windows closed while operating the air conditioning unit.
The fan speed setting has several options. Small, medium and high fan speed. The higher the noisier. There is also an auto setting. However, the latter seem to always choose high fan speed. Low fan speed is usually enough to keep a reasonable temperature.