Portable Air Conditioners - Junk or Effective?

[Smashian Kassian]

Definitely beats nothing.

 

I have an older one (2000's) & it worked well enough last summer, aside from having to empty the water tank every other hour.

 

Just make sure the setup fits in the window well.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Smashian Kassian

[BPA]

Replaced my furnace and got an 3.5 ton AC unit installed last fall.  I’m ready.

[The Arrogant Worms]

38 minutes ago, BPA said:

Replaced my furnace and got an 3.5 ton AC unit installed last fall.  I’m ready.

Did you get a heat pump?  I am looking at them.

[BPA]

32 minutes ago, The Arrogant Worms said:

Did you get a heat pump?  I am looking at them.

No.  Went with an AC unit.  Heat pump was an extra $1k. 

[-DLC-]

We have one room upstairs (3rd floor, facing east) that's L shaped and gets no air flow. It's like a sauna in there...no shade, sun beats in from the morning until about 2:00.

 

We got a portable unit for that room and it made a huge difference...so good. But you do have to get the right BTU's for the size of the room.

[Coconuts]

Good thread, I've been thinking about getting a window or portable version the last couple weeks because last summer was hell. 

 

I work night shifts and sleeping during the day is going to be a nightmare if I don't find a way to cool things down. 

[Crabcakes]

16 hours ago, zapperman said:

If I were in your shoes, I would try to find a way to make a window one work. Way cheaper and much more effective. My daughter and MIL both bought portables and for what they paid, they only marginally knock the heat down. Definitely couldn’t keep up last year. Both regret getting one. I’m in the middle of upgrading to central air as my son has a friend that installs on his evenings away from his HVAC job. Very much looking forward to that. 

Many Strata's don't allow window air conditioners so check your bylaws first if this applies

[Russ]

I prefer the dual hose ones, then at my pace I actually made a mount for the window out of wood and piped the hot air hose up with some galvanized steel pipe with a 90 degree elbow and a 3 foot length to try and keep the hot air up and away from the other hose if possible.  I don't know if that helped much but I know when they were side by side I felt hot air may have been getting sucked in.  We had 3 A/C units running non stop last year.  Worst part of a rancher is that the cold air doesn't go far.  

[Russ]

8 hours ago, Coconuts said:

Good thread, I've been thinking about getting a window or portable version the last couple weeks because last summer was hell. 

 

I work night shifts and sleeping during the day is going to be a nightmare if I don't find a way to cool things down. 

Hope you're using blackout curtains too with the whites on the back.  They work wonders for when I worked nights.  Helped to deflect heat from window and kept room dark.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

Also one should note, don't fall for the sales pitch from those peddling "swamp coolers":

 

 

[Greybeard]

If you are going to get a portable one, make sure it is a dual hose type.

Think of it this way:

 

Single hose: exhaust ONLY... So unit draws air from the room, a portion of that drawn air is cooled and sent back into the room. Another portion of that drawn air has heat "dumped" into it, then it goes into the exhaust hose and is sent outside. What you are effectively doing is one good thing, two bad things. Good=the room gets somewhat cooler. Bad=first, that exhausted air (drawn from the room) has to come from somewhere, so you are drawing warm air from somewhere else in your house into the room you are trying to cool. This air has to come from somewhere... if your house is leaking it comes from outside via cracks, if your house is tight it will get pulled in through combustion air sources (pipes means to supply combustion air to furnaces, gas fireplaces, hot water tanks etc. Second, you are also pulling some of your "just-cooled" air into the air intake... a portion is re-cooled, but a portion also exhausted with heat dumped into it. Think of it as an inflow into the unit, being split into two exhaust flows... one is cooled and sent back into the room, the other gets heat dumped into it and is sent outside. Because the cool exhaust is less than the overall intake, the unit is always pulling more air into it than is actually coming back out the cold air vents into the room.

This is why single hose portable air conditioners are extremely inefficient and costly to run. Because of the exhaust side (hot) only being outgoing from the house, and there effectively being this melding of the hot and cold sides of the unit.

Dual hose: Unit pulls air from the room, cools it, and dumps it back into the room. The hot side pulls already warm air from outside through one hose, dumps heat into it, and then exhausts it. Thus the hot/cold sides of the unit are separate. Far more efficient, because you are not pulling air from inside the house to exhaust, nor are you exhausting your just-cooled air. The dual hose unit effectively splits the hot and cold sides completely.

You can think of a dual hose unit as a window unit, with the unit moved into the room, but the hotside still connected to the outside via two hoses.

 

These units are more expensive to buy, but significantly cheaper to run and more effective at cooling a room/area.

 

GB

[Fanuck]

15 hours ago, BPA said:

No.  Went with an AC unit.  Heat pump was an extra $1k. 

That's not an insignificant investment and I can understand the hesitancy.

I'm wondering, would one make up the difference in initial investment with a reduction in operating costs over time, and how long would that take do you think? 

[BPA]

6 minutes ago, Fanuck said:

That's not an insignificant investment and I can understand the hesitancy.

I'm wondering, would one make up the difference in initial investment with a reduction in operating costs over time, and how long would that take do you think? 

Would take several years I would think.  Depends on the cost of electricity vs cost of natural gas.  Right now natural gas is still cheap.  But who know once taxes are put on things for “climate change”.  But then again, Hydro prices may go up as there is more and more demand for it.

 

If I didn’t have a central air duct (forced air), then I would have to go with a Heat Pump.  

[The Arrogant Worms]

Ironically I just had my gas furnace serviced.  I asked about a ductless heat pump and he will get back to me with a quote.

[bishopshodan]

This thread has reminded me to by a couple.

I can handle the heat but my wife is a wuss. I also have my 77yr old mum in a small granny suite next door. I'm gonna surprise her with one. 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

11 minutes ago, bishopshodan said:

This thread has reminded me to by a couple.

I can handle the heat but my wife is a wuss. I also have my 77yr old mum in a small granny suite next door. I'm gonna surprise her with one. 

That's the tough part dealing with those that are 'up there in years'.  They seem to LOVE the humidity / heat.  My mother had put on a heavy sweater in Vegas in the middle of summer because the air-con was cranked-up too high for her tastes.

[D.B Cooper]

I have a good one. 

If you want it COLD, they are best for a bedroom with the door closed.  

500sqft or a living room kinda thing, it will lower the temperature, but not enough, and it’s rough on the electric bill.  
But still worth it considering last summer was killing old people.   LOL!

[The Lock]

On 5/10/2022 at 3:08 PM, kanucks25 said:

Who needs air conditioning when you can just stand under a cool waterfall in lingerie.

See? This should be the advice for this thread. OP should just stand under a waterfall in lingerie. Case closed.

[wiseupsucker]

Before I got central AC I had a portable one. because of my bedroom situation I had to get longer hoses, For the exhaust hose, I got some cheap blankets and sort of "insulated" it. It deffo worked cause before the air around it was a bit warmer but after the insulation the warmth was negligible.

 

Maybe look into pre-insulated hoses?

[Gurn]

On 5/11/2022 at 4:17 PM, D.B Cooper said:

last summer was killing old people.   LOL!

Not funny.