Portable Air Con Units?

The1nonly1

The1nonly1

The1nonly1

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Are they worth the money? Do they cool a room down effectively or would it only be a slight noticable difference?

Can anyone who has one, or used one, offer any recommendations?
 
Quite expensive to buy and even more expensive to run. Loud when running and awkward to properly vent. However, they can definitely cool a room down to temperatures you'd expect from an AC unit... in fact, I had mine running in my son's bedroom for a few hours before bed and he was complaining the room was too cold :cry:

If positioned in the right spot and ran for long enough (couple of days) they will even do a good job of keeping the whole house cold, but it does come at a cost (electricity spend, noise and leakage of waste heat).

Mine's a Black & Decker unit but the portable units are all pretty much the same thing. For me, they are a stop gap to a full split AC system rather than a long term solution.
 
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They make a huge difference, but setting them up is difficult. You either want a vent drilled in the wall, or something in the window to stop the hot air getting in. I've used velcro fabric kits and they've worked just fine.

TBH, I tend to run them in a single room if I'm working from home in the summer, or overnight (when my electric is cheap anyway) so how efficient they are is almost irrelevant. I'd happily spend £5 to sleep for a night in the summer.

Obviously fixed units are better, but the install for that would cost me thousands so it's not going to happen.
 
I’ve got 4 units, all ‘12000btu / 3.5kw’ units, one for each person in the house, mainly for summer cooling…

They work fantastically in terms of cooling, absolutely will chill the room and take all the heat out of everything until you are freezing cold..

The down side is you need them near a window (unless you core drill some big vents in each room), and they are noisy in operation.. all 4 of us are fine getting to sleep with them on, but they are not silent, however it’s a white noise which most people can deal with.

I deliberately bought them all when on offer and bought 4 different ones to see which are most practical..
The most compact and useful is the Rhino ac12000, this is slimmer yet cools identically to the others and has motorised vents etc so easier to control without getting out of bed..
 
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We have a goodhome unit which absolutely cools down a large room, however they are noisy.

I've bought a smaller unit to see how that will be for keeping our room a bit cooler at night, it's only a few thousand BTU and for 3-5m2 spaces but it is much quieter.
 
Yup got a 12,000 btu unit, put it at the top of the stairs in the landing.

Life saver.

Our solar panels cover the energy use.
 
They help but they're noisy AF, bulky and awkward to setup with the venting for temporary solutions. I've tried venting mine out the window but it doesn't work very well as all the other hot air leaks in. Tried blocking the open bit of the window with pillows and helped but a bit of a dodgy setup. Often falls down.
If you have sash windows it works better as comes with a vent kit that suits them. We don't.

I tried hooking up to the vent in our ensuite extractor fan with a ridiculous amount of gaffer tape and it also peeled off in the night.
Seems there's just no easy vent solution. I'm not drilling a massive hole through the wall for a few nights a year so. I'll just continue to complain about the heat on ocuk forums. Thinks that's for the best and will help the most.
 
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Thanks all. Plan is to use in one room during the day to keep it cool. I have solar panels and battery so they should cover the usage and noise, not too bothered as I said as it'll be in the day.
 
The1nonly1 said:
Thanks all. Plan is to use in one room during the day to keep it cool. I have solar panels and battery so they should cover the usage and noise, not too bothered as I said as it'll be in the day.
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Do it, we got ours last year and I wouldn't do without it now.

Particularly as you got solar.
 
Going to get a round to flat adapter tomorrow (Toolstation 225 flat adapter and euro clips) as
the window kit I linked to earlier uses a lot of glue that seems to have dissolved/ melted.

Quite looking forward to having an multi split system installed at some point in the future but this should do until then.
 
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The1nonly1 said:
Are they worth the money? Do they cool a room down effectively or would it only be a slight noticable difference?

Can anyone who has one, or used one, offer any recommendations?
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Looks like I'm 3 days behind you. I work from home and monitors and PC heat up the rooms and I have to be freezing before I can sleep. I've been looking at the smaller £3-400 7000 btu ones as they're only about 25p an hour to run. Nearly every review I read is half the people saying this is amazing, it cools really well and then the other half saying this is really loud and it broke and I had to return it. I plan on stuffing the tube out the small window and filling around it with either cardboard, plastic or foam to keep the hot air and insects out.
 
I bought a cheap £189 7000BTU unit and velcro window kit - working perfectly. New build so the rooms are all super insulated, bedroom currently 19c. Yes loud, but white noise, we slept well with it the last few nights.
 
alexakasloth said:
the window kit I linked to earlier uses a lot of glue that seems to have dissolved/ melted.
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That happens when you wedge the hose with the window frame, or rest the hose on the velcro strip. You need to set it up so there's some separation between the strips and the hose otherwise the heat of the hose eventually melts the glue. Incidentally the glue is a pita to remove - hairdrier and scraper to get the worst off. Even Big Wipes/Wonder Wipes stuck solid....
 
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The hose isn't resting on the velcro strips, I think this was just a bad purchase for the usage.

On a better note the round to flat adapter is working well, the window only needs to be cracked open a small amount. I have the small 280w air conditioning unit running and it's brought a fair sized room down to 23c, and it runs quietly.
 
alexakasloth said:
I think this was just a bad purchase for the usage.
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Fair enough but I've got three of these fitted to upvc frames and apart from the previously mentioned problem they've been fine for years. Last strips were put on a month or so ago and are fine.
 
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