Portable a/c

theone8181

theone8181

theone8181

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So as our house is hitting 28 degrees at the moment (with all the windows open:eek:), i'm looking at getting some portable a/c for the kids bedrooms. Has anyone any experience of these? I would like proper a/c but i can't afford it just yet.
 
They are "ok"

Ive got one

The issues are really around noise and venting
Noise, they tend to be a little noiser than split units, everything is inside basically.

The venting, this is the real issue. You really need the right windows, or to be pretty handy at working out a solution to almost seal the room. You cant completely seal or you wont be able to push air out right, plus if not enough airflow the units are again noisier.

If you have sash windows you have the easiest to fix up. Drop them right down on the vent, small hole to fill, mine even came with a sash filler, basically a foam type rectangle with a hole in it.
A real quick bodge is to cover the window with cardboard.hardboard or similar and wack a hole in that to vent out of.

Another way is to got for the get the kids to sleep approach. If going this way, shut the room up with just the AC in it, get it as cold as possible, with the vent out and the window shut as much as you can, it will be less efficient but will work.
Then put them to bed and shut the window. Once they have dropped off and its warming up just open the window. Body temperature naturally drops as you sleep so if they wake later they will probably not find it too hot anyways.
 
We have one in the bedroom, over the last couple of nights it's been struggling a bit to get it down to 18C and it's been around 20~21C - but this is with 2 humans, 3 large dogs, 1 medium dog and 4 cats! At the time it was considered one of the quetiest variants you could get. But it's still very noisy. You don't need to have a water exhaust feed, just the hot air (Older one needed an exhaust for water too) - for what it is, it's "OK" as mentioned above, and it's certainly better than a fan or those units you fill up with water BUT it's no substitute for a proper aircon setup where the condensers are external.
 
We're using two portable A/C units until we get around to putting proper units as part of our house renovation. We have a 12,000BTU upstairs and an 8,000BTU downstairs and they do the job well, if a little noisy on full power. They both vent out of windows but with the sealing bags that velcro to the window frames to keep up the efficiency and to avoid insects coming in during the evening.

We find that if they're run for a good period during the day they keep the internal structure of the house a lot cooler so when we shut them off to go to bed the temperature doesn't rise which otherwise happens. The house seems to become one big storage heater, but we do have a traditional brick/block/base and top coat plaster construction.

Initially we were going to put fixed A/Cs in early, but with the portable ones we get to work out what level of cooling we need and where before committing to a fixed two part system and also having to remove the internal units for renovation work.
 
200sols said:
Don’t open the windows and close blinds/curtains. Rooms will stay much cooler.
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Tbh my wife tried that today and reckons its better. I can't tell as I'm always hot and sweaty in this weather. I'm thinking I might get one you and put it in 1 child's room for a bit before bed, then switch it to other child's room to try and balance them out. Does that sound feasible? Ive seen one for 250 at Screwfix which looked OK. I wasn't planning on running them overnight so noise wise I don't mind, I realise fixed us much quieter.
 
Raggs said:
those windows seal things look ugly as hell have a look at the diy perspex solution andy mk3 posted here very neat.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/its-too-hot.18406960/page-367
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That's so simple it's genius, i might well do that myself.

I got a portable unit from Lidl for £200, it was magic last night. Set it going in the bedroom at about half 5 and by the time i put my 9 month old daughter in her cot for bed at 7 it was around 19-20 and felt brilliant compared to the rest of the house. Turned the fans down to low until we went to bed at 10ish then it went off as it was cooling off enough outside by then.

I should have bought one ages ago.
 
I finally cracked and bought one for the bedroom this year. It’s an 8000 BTU unit from screwfix. I bought one of those velcro window air locks to go with it.

The room is around 3.6m x 4.2m and in this extreme heat it struggles to keep up but does cool the room to around 21C which makes it bearable.

The main drawback is definitely the noise - however in my opinion it’s worth it for a better nights sleep. The trick is to put it on full blast/lowest temp possible as it’ll never reach the temp you set so the compressor won’t keep switching on or off which is what disrupts sleep for me. Sleeping with ear plugs makes the noise a non-issue too.

If you have the cash it’s definitely worth splashing out for a more expensive unit which should be quieter. Also I definitely recommend overspeccing the BTU for the intended room size.
 
I bought two of the 7000btu Clarke units last summer, although they're just about enough to cool our lounge/diner and the bedrooms down, the venting was the biggest issue - window sealing kits just aren't secure enough for our ground floor bedrooms.

This year I decided to make a pretty permanent solution and install a 100mm tumble-dryer vent kit in each room.
(this one: https://www.screwfix.com/p/manrose-internal-fit-wall-kit-w-backdraft-shutter-117mm/1312x )

I borrowed the old man's 107mm core drill and got to work...
http://imgur.com/a/andgyhG

It's made a massive difference to the efficiency and noise - we have a breeding pair of Persians, so keeping windows open is not an option.

I'm not looking forward to how winter will treat the vents, but I'm confident a rolled up rag and a duct cap will do the job...
 
Why doesn't anywhere in the UK sell a dual hose portable AC unit? That way it's not sucking warm air from outside the room making it more efficient.
 
norm said:
Why doesn't anywhere in the UK sell a dual hose portable AC unit? That way it's not sucking warm air from outside the room making it more efficient.
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I thought most of the ones i'd seen take air in from the front, and then exhaust it out the back.
 
Semple said:
I thought most of the ones i'd seen take air in from the front, and then exhaust it out the back.
Click to expand...

A dual hose unit takes air from outside cools it, blows it into the room and exhausts hot air from the unit back outside.

A single hose unit draws air from inside the room and exhausts it outside, however that has the effect of creating a negative pressure in the room drawing warm air from elsewhere in the house into the room reducing the cooling effect.
 
Big issue with these units is the extremely poor efficiency the hot air has time to reheat the room as it is pumped through the hose and all the hot parts of the device are in the room.

So far we have managed with just fans for now but if things carry on getting more extreme we will look at a full AC setup.
 
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