In part because of the biting wind from the mountains, the winters in Gunma Prefecture are so cold that just stepping outside is enough to turn your eyeballs into ice-cubes. During summer, my faithful A/C had kept my room at a refreshing temperature, but upon turning the A/C on in the winter, nothing happened. Resist the urge to button mash, I looked closely at the air-conditioner’s remote control. The A/C had been set to “cool.” With a simple press of the button, I changed the setting to “heat,” and the room was flooded with glorious warm air. In a performance to rival the 2001: A Space Odessey monkeys, I raised the remote above my head and brought it down on the standard-issue Leopalace apartment table several times while screeching. You too can have a moment of triumph such as this by using this guide on how to use your Japanese air-conditioning. How to Use Japanese Air-Conditioning (“Air-con”) In Japanese, the air-conditioning unit itself is called “air-con” (エアコン), and the remote control is called “rimo-con” (リモコン).

If you have a furnished apartment and can’t find the remote control, it might be mounted on the wall near the air-conditioner, perhaps hidden behind the curtain. Most remote controls have the same basic functions, so I will be using my own remote control as an example. The buttons may not be in the same place, so take a close look at the kanji. Some higher-end air-conditioners may additional functions not covered in this guide, such as an on-off timer (タイマー), self-cleaning setting (内部クリーン), or clothes drying setting (衣類乾燥). Using a Japanese Air-Conditioner Remote Control Obviously, the most important button on a Japanese A/C remote control is the “on/off” button. The on/off button is labeled 運転/停止 (pronounced “unten/teishi” and literally meaning “operation/suspension”). Sometimes this button will be labeled 運転　切/入 or just 切/入. Press this button once and the A/C will come on. Once the A/C is on, the little screen on the remote control will also come on.

The temperature will be displayed, possibly along with other settings. The “change temperature” buttons are usually in the shape of an up and down arrow or have a plus or minus sign on them. In kanji, they are labeled 温度 (“ondo,” meaning “temperature”). Press the up arrow or plus sign to raise the temperature. best window air conditioning units 2013Press the down arrow or minus sign to lower the temperature.central air conditioner parts for sale Change Type of Operation (運転切換)how much does hvac unit cost On my remote control, the type of operation (auto-run, heating, cooling, etc.) is displayed on the screen. When you press the 運転切換 button (“unten kirikae,” meaning “change operation”), the little arrow on the screen will go down and point to a different operation.

Many Leopalace remote controls are also like this. Sometimes, buttons themselves on the remote control will be labeled with the name of the type of operation. In this case, you would press the button labeled with the operation you desired. The following are standard operations included on many Japanese air-conditioners. Types of Operations for Japanese Air-Conditioners 送風 (ventilator – dries inside of a/c to prevent mold, pronounced”soufu”) 省エネ (low power-usage, pronounced “shou ene”) While many Japanese A/C remote controls have additional buttons, these are the most basic and most used. Hopefully this Japanese air-conditioner guide can help you create a warm space of your own this winter. Your air conditioner does two jobs: It cools down the air and it dehumidifies the air. If you live in a dry climate, you want the AC to dehumidify as little as possible because it uses extra energy and makes you spend more on lip balm and hand lotion.

If you live in a humid climate, you really want it to do that second job as well as it can to keep your indoor air dry and comfortable. But where does all that condensate go? In most homes, it goes outdoors through a pipe, like the one above. Sometimes there's a little pump that pumps it out, but most often it drains by gravity alone. Occasionally that condensate line gets clogged. This happened at my condo last week. (We live in Atlanta, Georgia, a mixed-humid climate.) Gunk in the pipe built up to the point where it was barely draining. We could run the AC for a little while and then we'd have to turn it off again. This past weekend I tackled the problem. One of the best ways to do so is with good old air pressure. If you can close off all escape routes except the one in the direction of the clog, you can shoot positive pressure into the pipe near where the indoor unit is located. That should blow the clog out the other end. In our case, that wasn't an option because our condensate line is connected to our upstairs neighbor's air conditioner, too.

So I got out my little wet-dry shop vac and set it up to suck the gunk out at the end of the pipe. The photo below shows the setup. I was hoping to avoid a trip to the hardware store, so I used red duct tape to try to make an airtight connection between the shop vac hose and the condensate line. I took the shop vac hose with me to the store and bought some fittings in the plumbing department. I hooked it all up (photo above) and got a nice, airtight connection this time. With the taped connection, I got maybe half a cup of water out of the pipe. With the airtight connection, I got the bucket full of crud you see below. If you really want to see how bad it was, watch the short video below and you can see my wife pouring it out. Yes, all that gunk was in our condensate line. One problem with condensate lines is that algae can grow in them. In our case, there's also a lot of sediment in that bucket, possibly from a corroded evaporator coil. We replaced our AC in 2009 and the condensate line hasn't been cleaned since then, so some of that crud could have been from our old unit.