I'm about to move in to a new house, and was wondering whether an aircon would be worthwhile.

I'll be using a room on first floor as "office" (I spend a lot of time in front of the computer), but the room is open down to the living room. I've attached a picture taken from 1st floor hope fully to bette rillustrate what I mean.

My question is, with the room being open like that, will an aircon give me anything but a big electricity-bill? I assume it would be working overtime, as it would try to cool down basically the entire house.

Is a fan my best option?

Cold air seeks the lowest point in a room or space. If the AC is on the 1st floor I would think the output will all go down into the opening to the ground floor and not help you a bit on the 1st floor. Waste of time and money unless you have a machine to cool the entire space.

Cold air seeks the lowest point in a room or space. If the AC is on the 1st floor I would think the output will all go down into the opening to the ground floor and not help you a bit on the 1st floor. Waste of time and money unless you have a machine to cool the entire space.

second that. Cold air is more heavy than hot air.

You need to partition off the volume of space around your working table to use a A/C unit for cooling.

Why spend a little extra and enclose the computer room and install an Aircon, be nice and cool while you do your thing in Cyber world, not having to worry about a big electricity bill. Just think you could easy take a nice cool afternoon nap while floating to cyber world.

We have a big living room that is open to the stairwell and a hallway to 3 rooms downstairs.

To save on the aircon we installed a curtain from ceiling to floor.

It works very well at keeping cool air in the living room.

I agree with all that if you can isolate the space being cooled with a partition or curtain to keep the cool air in, then, enjoy life on the computer