One hose portable AC?

A friend's air conditioning has failed and she doesn't have the money to replace the compressor etc.

So she's looking at so-called portable AC One unit she saw looks nice, has the right controls plus remote, but only has an output hose. One of the laymen reviewing it makes that a deal breaker, that it doesnt have an input hose also to the window.

Because this means it will suck hot air in from the outside, but that won't be the same air expelled.

This makes sense to be but maybe it's not as bad as the reviewer makes it sound. If hot air is sucked in through its own hose, the AC won't be able to add as much heat to the hot air as it would to te room temperature air, and that will lower the efficiency of the AC. It will also lower its speed of heating the room it's in, although it will raise to some extent the temperature of the rooms it's not in, depending on where the outside air infittrates.

Normally she keeps the basement window (10 inhces high near the ceiling of the basement) open all summer, and the other major place is the mail slot in the front door. It has an inner metal flap and an outer metal flap but no foam in either flapway. (Maybe if I looked at it some more, I could figure out how to add foam that wouldn't either keep the mail out or get knocked off by the income mail.) Also the weather stripping in her laterallly open window probably won't work as well when she has to open one window and one storm window for the hose output.

Do you think one hose AC is terrrible and should avoided at all cost?

About half of the machines out there are one hose. Admittedly, the cheaper ones, but she doesn't want to spend too much either.

Her b-room is 14 x 19 = 266 plus if she leaves the little bathroom door open that's about another 30 feet2. IOW about 300 sq.feet.

Reply to
micky
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I will definitely take a hit on efficiency because of the reasons you cite. It takes cool house air, uses a blower to push it past the hot coils and then out the house. That air is then replaced by hot outside air coming into the house. How much that winds up costing her would depend on how much she uses it, how much eff is lost, and what electric rates are. And that would have to be compared to the cost difference of a two hose one.

Reply to
trader_4

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, micky belched:

tell her to save her money and just buy a window unit. i saw test results of the so called portables and they were not good. They barely cooled the rooms more than about 10 degrees cooler that the outside temps. Even the most expensive Westinghouse ($500) didn't get the job done. Get a window unit and forget it jmo

Reply to
ChairMan

Must be in a condo, or HOA? I find window AC start about $110 at Walmart. But some places don't allow window AC. I'd expect a one hose to provide comfort in one room, and that's what counts.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

micky wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I've had two of those single-hose portable A/C units.

They work just fine -- for one room only. They don't have the volume to cool two rooms.

They do take longer than a window unit or central A/C to cool that one room, but they do work, even at ambient temperatures of 100F.

It is important that the exhaust-hose be sealed where it meets the window to prevent the hot exhaust air from re-entering the room, which would increase cooling time. For me, this meant cutting up some corrugated cardboard to fit, and stuffing some Kleenex in the gaps left over. The units came with some hardware to seal-off the exhaust hose, but this hardware didn't fit my windows, hence the cardboard.

Reply to
Tegger

Thanks for the answer. The thing is, she has no one to put in a window unit and that includes me. The one time I did that was in my apartment in Brooklyn, and the first thing I did was nail** a shelf to the wooden outside window sill, with a small block of wood to make it horizontal. Then I put in the AC and when I let go of it, there was no chance it was going to fall out of the window. (It also meant I could open the window in the spring and fall, and the AC just sat there. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it this way.)

But she has no outside window sill at all. and 80% of the weight of those things is outside. It's the second floor, not the fifth floor like in Brooklyn, but I still can't do it. (The windows slide horizontally/)

**With nails at opposing angles so they couldn't be pulled out by the shelf. Prior to the AC I had put in a shelf in the kitchen to hold a little charcoal grill. That was more interesting. The drug addicts*** next door saw the charcoal lighter burning, and I'm glad to say called a neighbor of mine instead of the fire department. (Probably because it looked like a charcoal grill and not like an apartment on fire.) And another time when I shut the window to keep out the smell of burning charcoal lighter, the heat broke the window. But in 11 years in that building, that's all I broke.) ***Literally drug addicts, everyone who lived there except maybe the staff. Part of Teen Challenge ("The Cross and the Switchblade")
Reply to
micky

Those horizontal sliders need a "casement" AC. Which are made, but not as easy to find.

Sounds like the hose thing is going to be the only answer. Since you don't have anyone to put in AC, how will she carry the unit in and take it out of the box?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I have 2 single hose AC units (8&12BTU)...the larger cools 2 rooms (625sf) comfortably. It wouldn't run in a standard 15A outlet though, I had to re-wire a dryer outlet so it had its own circuit. We have crank-out windows! 8^O

Reply to
BenDarrenBach

One room would be enough. That's pretty much all she uses anyhow, except for the bathroom, and I called her this morning and she said a) the bathroom was never a problem. Being hot for a while is not a problem. The problem was sleeping all night in the heat, and having no refuge to go to in the daytime except the basement, whether there is no place good to lie down. b) if she has to, she can start using the bathroom that connects with her bedroom. It's small (~30 sq. ft. as I think I said) and will probably cool off when the room does if the door is left open.

Okay. She was also worried about the noise, but suggested herself that she could turn it on in advance and maybe not have to run it at when she's sleeping. Some of them have sleep timers or On timers or both.

Thanks, and thanks to all.

I'm thinking most of the air will enter through the open basement window

-- 200 times as big as the openings in the mail slot -- where it will be cooled by the constant 64 degrees in the basement before it eventually gets upstairs.

In fact I met a guy who said he got good results cooling his upstairs just by letting his furnace fan run, bringing up cool air from the basement. I suggested that years ago hear and got shot down by everyone, but he says it works.

Reply to
micky

That I will do.

Reply to
micky

Thanks. One that says it's 12btu also says it runs on 12 or 13 amps. You've warned me and I'll make sure she doesn't buy one that uses 15 or more. (I'm going to pick it up and bring it home too, unless she gets one by mail.) I don't know what else she has on the circuit she would use.

Did you or Tegger notice the rest of your home getting hotter when you used these?

Reply to
micky

No...our house is well insulated and sealed (vented eaves and peak vents).

Reply to
BenDarrenBach

She's fortunate to have good friends.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I didn't see where he said she has horizontal casement windows. We don't know where it goes, only that she has no one to put it in for her. The vast majority of window ACs don't need some wood platform built outside to hold it. They also don't weigh anywhere near what old ones used to weigh.

If it's a regular window, then I think the best solution would be to find someone local that can set it in the window for her, take it out, it's just twice a year. There are probably other things that she also needs done that such a person would be useful for too.

I was kind of wondering that too. And there still could be some fitment issue, if it's some window type that it's not exactly made to fit, etc.

Reply to
trader_4

That may very well be correct, but don't forget about humidity. In hot humid climates, the temperature often approaches the dewpoint at night. When the outside air is very humid and you bring it into the basement, it could easily cool down to the dewpoint temerature and condense on walls, pipes, and anything else down there. You can damage things stored in the basement and encourage mold and mildew problems.

Pat

Reply to
Pat

micky wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Nope. At least not that we noticed; we were only concerned with cooling that one room, which was a bedroom. We didn't mind sweltering during the day, but trying to sleep in 90+ temperatures was impossible.

And both of our units ran off a standard 120V/15A wall outlet.

Reply to
Tegger

"the windows slide horizontally/"

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

micky wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You do get used to the noise, which is about the same as a window unit.

We never bothered with any of that. It's more important to keep the newly- cooled air inside the room than it is to give the room a particular temperature of feed-air.

Just keep the room-door closed to allow the cool air to stay inside and the room will cool to the point where you will eventually want to pull the blankets over you. Those portables are pretty effective for one room; you'll have noticeable cooling in about ten minutes, with the door kept shut.

The portables also operate as dehumidifiers, which makes them really handy in the basement once you have your normal A/C back.

Two isses I've found with the portables:

1) They're very heavy and bulky. It takes a man to lug them up and down stairs, and even he's going to need to work at it.. 2) Moving them too abruptly can cause their water reservoirs to slosh and spill on the carpet, which is a bit of a nuisance..
Reply to
Tegger

Pat wrote in news:6b1jq9lmb75q93dmue6c24acfbiai4njok@

4ax.com:

That doesn't happen. The room being cooled ends up dryer than the rest of the house, which remains only as moist as it would be anyway in the absence of the portable.

The units act as dehumidifiers even in A/C mode, which is why the reservoir fills up and needs to be emptied once in a while. Remember, portables can't simply let their water drip outside, but must drip their water into an internal pan instead.

Reply to
Tegger

I wasn't talking about the room being cooled. It should be pleasant (both lower temp and lower humidity). I was responding to the comment that air would be drawn in through the basement windows to replace the hot air exhausted from the A/C in the bedroom.

Am I correct in assuming a "one hose" A/C exhausts hot air from the condenser coil through that one hose, but uses inside air to feed that?

Reply to
Pat

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