Portable Air Conditioners

Well, late this evening the temp outside (in East Anglia) had dropped to about 18C, and by sunrise them Wx stn suggested it was about 16C.

However I purchased a portable a/c unit (Luxair KYR-35 £350) and it is keeping my office (about 10' sqr) down to 22C not silent by a long chalk but ... it won't keep the living room down that cool, but does make it much more comfortable. Not sure i could sleep with it on but maybe. Not tried due to not being able to easily vent it out the window (location of sockets and style of window - some DIY needed.

Only down side other than noise level is it pulls about 1.4kW - but that is offset by the fact it is very sunny.

HTH

Avpx

The portable refrigeration/dehumidifier type do work, but need am elephant's trunk exhaust and a water collector emptying every few hours ... and they're probably all sold out now!

Yes. See

I bought a Honeywell 9000BTU 3 In 1 Portable Air Conditioner (HC09CESAWK) three years ago from airconcentre.co.uk. It cools our 18' x

Last night we had to sleep in the lounge as the bedroom was at 28°C (24° in the lounge). The noise level was ok, and as it is mostly constant you soon get used to it (ear plugs can help if you don't).

It normally works continuously, but yesterday stopped after about 8 hours with a full condensate tank for the first time (normally it's vented through the hose with the hot air). Once emptied it started again automatically. I guess it might do it again sometime with the high humidity.

The service by aircon centre was excellent - it was delivered less than

Gosforth Handyman just posted a very favourable review of the Screwfix one (£179 or so). Lots of graphs showing how well it did in a bedroom.

A portable aircon will certainly work to some extent. Some are better than others though. The ones that will let you draw cooling air from outside are better, since they are then not pumping inside air out (which means that new inside air must be sucked in from somewhere else).

I live in a house whose main upstairs bedroom has windows in 3 aspects - east, south and west. This gets extremely hot in heatwaves, even with the curtains closed all day.

About 4 years ago, I bought a Unoovo portable air conditioner which claims to have a cooling capacity of 10,000 BTU (about 3 kW). This has been brilliant, and provides us with a comfortable sleeping environment

- even in this current heat wave. It's by no means silent but, once it's cooled the room down, is fine on low speed while we are asleep. It also has a "sleep" mode which turns off the lights in the control panel.

It is very important that the hot air outlet is installed in a leak-proof manner so that no hot air con come back into the bedroom. This can sometimes be achieved with the supplied venting kit if you've got sash windows, but is pretty much impossible with casement windows or top-opening vents.

In my case, I have achieved this by installing a 6" circular plastic duct [1] through the wall, with a gravity vent on the outside. This works a treat, and all plugs together very quickly when needed. [I've also made a close-fitting plug out of expanded foam to fill the wall duct during the winter, to prevent heat loss].

We only usually need to use the aircon for a few days each year, during very hot weather - but the number of days per year has increased considerably during the 4 years we've had it. At other times - when it's just warm at night but not seriously hot - a 3-speed desk fan is adequate. It obviously doesn't remove heat, but the airflow provides sufficient cooling effect.

Many thanks for all the replies :-)

The outlet hose will be a PITA. What does it carry? Can I stick it up the chimney?

Hot moist air

Air containing the 'heat' you are trying to get rid of. You need to vent this outside otherwise the unit is just a noisy fan heater.

Can you seal a hose up to the chimney so air won't leak out? The air is at moderate pressure so it will escape through any gaps.

Is the chimney sealed so that the hot air doesn't leak elsewhere, eg into an upstairs room? Might it heat up the bricks so the wall transfers heat into the room?

Can you get a hose up to the chimney from the portable a/c unit without being too long? You will lose some efficiency as heat is conducted from the inside to the outside of the pipe, warming the room up again - eventually you loose so much heat that the a/c unit can't keep up. An insulated hose helps here (the hose on my unit was 150mm).

If the chimney is properly lined for a fire then it might be a good option. Also if your room has outside vents for fresh air then you could duct them to the inlet of your unit to avoid using some of your precious cooled room air to pump heat up the chimney.

Theo

Freeze some water, say a couple of 5l containers, and blow a fan over them.

Melting 1kg of ice takes 334kJ, so 10kg can provide a useful amount of cooling for a room, though you do have quite a big room.

And if your freezer is in the garage, ie not heating up the house, and you re-freeze the water daily, you have made a heat pump.

Irritating, but not lethal for a day or two

Downstairs was a pleasant 25°C last night but I endured 29°C out of sheer laziness. It got better with open windows after dark

Doesnt matter as long as the humidity is <100%...

A refrigerator with a fan might.

Or make s*it loads of ice, put in a bowl and blow a fan over it

You might jury rig a a car aircon system, of course

OT: My car aircon doesn't work, the car is old and I don't care. The same for my last car, and it seems a very common problem, needing to have the aircon re-gassed.

Why? Never had anything like this with a domestic fridge.

NVH.

Car aircons live under the bonnet in wet dry dusty high noise corrosion and vibration environments. They are not 'sealed for life' but have service ports that can and do leak. The condensers spring leaks due to salt corrosion. Pipes chafe and wear through., Dirt gets into the schrader valves

And trust me after 20 years the average fridge is not nearly as efficient as it once was

Their compressors aren’t belt driven by an external motor (so they have seals on the shafts) and their heat exchanges aren’t in the line of fire from stones.

Tim

I have a portable air con unit and the exhaust hose is a real nusiance. I find it's such a nuisance that I haven't bothered using it this hot spell.

And that's in addition to the drain hose and tank for the condensed moisture.

And don't get me started about the noise.

All in all, next time I would get a wall-mounted split air con unit even if it cost three times the price and needs installing.

I can't help but think that a ceiling fan may not be as effective but it's a lot less trouble to use, although it needs installing.

I needed to have a fridge re-gassed 40+ years ago. Don't remember the reason now, but it wasn't scraping the ice off the freezer compartment, which is how the neighbour's wife damaged their fridge a few years later.

The difference is how the thing gets its rotational energy

Easy with an electric motor, much harder with a petrol or diesel car to avoid leaking refrigerant

Many thanks :-)

The chimney serves the only fire in the house, in the lounge and the fireplace has an electric fire standing in from of it from when I had my boiler replaced on what seemed to be the coldest few days of the year so can be lifted out the way.

Wanted to be reasonably sure I won't damage the chimney.