Portable Air Conditioner

[Vapin' Joe]

Anyone got one?

The bedroom in my place is like an oven when the weather hots up and I can't get any sleep. Amazon have them for under £200 and I wondered if anyone here has any experience of using one.

 

[Drago]

I had one donkeys ago and while it worked it didnt last long. Gave in and had it properly installed and I'm enjoying it as we speak...

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Do they cost much to run? I only need it on before I go to bed to get the temperature down so I can drift off to sleep quickly.

 

[Drago]

They're quite economical. I've never looked at the numbers but there's no spike in the lecky bill over the summer.

Mrs D in particular suffers in the heat because of her MS, can make her quite ill, so we have the upstairs one going all night but that is at cheap rate so negligible sums.

During winter when Im home alone I run them backwards to hest then room rather than firing up the central heating.

They're £1500 each fitted, and thst was at mates rates as the guy that owns the company is a guitarist and often crops up at rhe jam nights I sometimes go to. Worth every penny though - he solders all his pipes rather than using clamp fittings and has never needed to regas one during 25 years in business.

 

[si_c]

The portable units are rather inefficient they do move a lot of heat outside and cool the room (for small to medium sized rooms, they tend to fail for large spaces), but they consume rather more electricity than a fixed unit. This is because the heat exchanger is actually inside the room it's cooling rather than outside so a fair proportion of the heat leaks back into the space being cooled, meaning it has to run harder, producing more heat.

Ultimately they are just heat pumps though, so whilst inefficient compared to a fixed unit they cost relatively less to run than electric heaters do and tend to hit a COP of 2.5ish.

 

[Dadam]

I bought a portable unit on an offer back in 2011. It worked ok, but it was noisy to run. The pump sent vibrations through the floor, I couldn't sleep with it on but it was good to run for a couple of hours before bed. Better/more modern/more expensive units are probably quieter these days.

The other issue was the vent pipe. It needs to go out of the window, obviously, or you're just heating up the room. Also the rest of the window should be sealed round the vent pipe, or warm air is just coming back in. It came with a kit for sash windows but ours are full openers. I tried to rig something up with cardboard and gaffer tape but way too much of a faff and looked terrible. So ended up just sticking the pipe out of the open window; not very efficient. The vent pipe was quite stiff and awkward to manage, would be better to set it up for a longer time. I sold it a couple of years later, not worth the trouble for the 3 or 4 days a year it made sense to set it up.

They are semi portable at best. Yes you can roll them round on castors but unless you've got a suitable vent kit in every room you use it in, it's not worth it.

The permanent units like Drago's are the way to go and I'm considering one for our loft.

 

[cyberknight]

can i have a load for work please? i was dripping with sweat most of the day ,

 

[fossyant]

We've had a portable one for 20 years and more. Two bedrooms are south facing so retain the heat (modern house). We have it on the landing with a hose out of the bathroom window. Uses about 1KWh so 26p an hour. Essential for us. Bit noisy but not an issue if it's in a different room blowing the cold air. You'll want 9,000 BTU or more.

 

[fossyant]

Vent pipe is quite stiff, but we keep that super short (not extended) and connect it to a larger diameter flexible extension. With the extension pipe being larger (150mm) we aren't getting the heat in the pipe as the volume of the pipe is much larger and air moves through better and you have enough flex to get the heat out and away from the window. We don't seal the window.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

We've just lent our daughter our 'air-cooler'
Ie; where the endless fabric belt is dipped into a bath of cold water, & is blown through, as it passes the fan
Cheap & effective

 

[gbb]

We brought a DeLonghi Pingui late last summer, a bit under £500 iirc.
Double bedroom, close the door, vent goes to the window and I created a blank with perspex sheet to close the window gap, a little heath Robinson but it does work.
Set at 20c it will run full tilt for 10 minutes perhaps then start cycling between fan only for maybe 3.minutes, full ac for around a minute...and so on.
it seems very noisy at first but you very quickly get used to it.
Just did meter readings the other day, it cost around £15 extra for the month, its not on every night but has been on a reasonable amount, plus some of that vost is a fan downstairs thats nearly always on during the day (wife is really struggling with the heat)

20c doesn't sound.low but when you get up in the morning and walk into the rest of the house...you feel the difference.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Thanks for the replies, I've sunk my teeth into the bullet and ordered a 9000 BTU one from Amazon, arriving Friday.

If it's no good it can always go back.

 

[AndyRM]

https://www.aldi.co.uk/product/ambiano-portable-air-cooler-with-led-000000000634102001

Bought one of these last week on a whim as my partner gets hot and bothered far more easily than I do. It's a bit noisy on the highest setting, but for individual cooling she has no complaints. Won't cool a whole room down but it's very effective for an individual and for £15 I don't think you'll find much better.

 

[mustang1]

They're quite economical. I've never looked at the numbers but there's no spike in the lecky bill over the summer.

Mrs D in particular suffers in the heat because of her MS, can make her quite ill, so we have the upstairs one going all night but that is at cheap rate so negligible sums.

During winter when Im home alone I run them backwards to hest then room rather than firing up the central heating.

They're £1500 each fitted, and thst was at mates rates as the guy that owns the company is a guitarist and often crops up at rhe jam nights I sometimes go to. Worth every penny though - he solders all his pipes rather than using clamp fittings and has never needed to regas one during 25 years in business.

Do you have to run the AC unit frequently to reduce maintenance? For example, in cars, the AC should be run a couple of times per month otherwise something happens (I think the seals around the pipes dry up or something then you to replace them - just wondered if that's the same thing for AC in a room).

 

[Drago]

Do you have to run the AC unit frequently to reduce maintenance? For example, in cars, the AC should be run a couple of times per month otherwise something happens (I think the seals around the pipes dry up or something then you to replace them - just wondered if that's the same thing for AC in a room).

Nope. Cars have all sorts of flexi pipes and joints that require seals, and those seals leak unless the system is regularly used and the conditioner pumped round.

These are solid copper microbore type pipes, all joins soldered.

There said, both units get run fairly frequently anyway.