Portable air conditioners

[the_bob_delusion]

anyone know much about it?

HOw does that compare with evaporative air coolers?

[carls*world]

Evaps only work efficiently in very dry air. Otherwise they just serve to further humidify.

Portable refrig are "ok" from my experience, less efficient than a comparable powered wall or window mounted, or split system, but definitely better than nothing on 40+ days. They come with a pipe/tube setup to exhaust the heated (condensor side) air to outdoors, which usually mounts in a partially opened window..

[topsidesoul]

It depends on how big an area.

I have to run mine for two hours to cool three rooms and the passage (with fans atr each door drawing air in)

You really need to make sure you have a window to vent it out of ...

goto productreview.com.au to check the best ones

[cq_tech]

I found my 1.5HP portable air-con really struggled to keep a fairly large bedroom cool on Brisbane summer nights, and although they vent out a partially-opened window, they still generate a great deal of heat, much of which stays in the room and detracts from the unit's performance.

Also, buy one with an automatic pump which empties the evaporation collector out the window, otherwise you'll find several litres of water on your floor in the morning. On a humid night, mine would create in excess of 20 litres of water via condensation (great for use in steam irons and car batteries).

[twinkles**stars]

20 litres....what a vivid imagination lol

[the_bob_delusion]

so with the evaporative cooler which is pretty cheap. Does it cool the room well enough?

[**meep**]

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@twinkles**stars wrote:

20 litres....what a vivid imagination lol

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it wouldn't be that far off when i compare it with how much my dehumidifier collects.

[catsnknots]

A lot of heat is generated that needs to escape and it leave via a tube out the window... it is ok if your tube is short and leads right out the window.. but if it has a lot of lenght then the heat sort of jsut dissipates back into the room. 

If you get one set it up on a table and put the back right up against the window and make the tube really short then it works fine. 

Make sure you get thte right size for the room 

[grumpy*cat*rocks]

We used to have one in our bedroom, used it last summer. Worked fairly well, much better than an evap air cooler which is hopeless with Brisbanes humidity. (unless you constantly feed ice blocks into it to keep the water cold).

The hose that went into and out the window would get very hot to the touch, so I would imagine quite a bit of radiant heat would build up around that area and be hard to remove.

I cannot recall the brand name of it, but it was the largest portable air conditioner we could buy from Bunnings at the time.

When you are melting in the heat and humidity anything will help.

We used it along with our ceiling fan to help keep us comfortable.

Have a built in air conditioner now so sold the portable unit.

[at_wicks_end]

Actually Twinkles, the one I have in my spare room would easily generate 20 litres plus on a humid Brisbane night!

Mine is a 3.5 HP. What I have done is raise the unit up off the ground. Placed over the top of a plastic storage tub which is a 12 litre one.

In the morning, it is pretty much full to the brim, and that is with me tipping out a couple of bucket loads during the night as well. Only good thing about insomnia is it means I am awake so can empty it as the night goes on. I take the plug out so the water can drain straight out. Once it gets to around 4 am, when I normally drop off for a few hours, I stick the plug back in so it collects within the machine.

So no, not a vivid imagination at all actually.