With the recent UK heatwaves, I’m seeing a lot of ads recently for so-called portable ‘AC’ units which supposedly use little electricity and require no installation or external piping.
This has to be a scam. You can’t magically ‘remove’ heat. Thermodynamics does not allow this.
I have to assume that all the ‘testimonials’ are fake?
There is a style that just pumps the heat out a window. They’re typically meant for one room.
Do you have a link to any of the ads?
Installation is usually next to nothing and they’re on casters to roll room to room or away into a closet.
Perhaps the ads hint at “former NASA scientist” or similar to demonstrate the company’s bona fides?
If so, yeah, they’re scams. Mostly, those are just fans or blowers.
If you search for “scam AC” on any seach engine or in YouTube, you’ll see several debunking hits that take them apart and find plain ol’ fans.
Oh, window AC units are real, of course. But these things are supposed to just sit in the room and cool it. Sorry, physics does not allow this. I’ll dig up a few ad links if you want; but they’re all over the place in the UK at the moment…
This thread from last summer may be relevant, if it’s what we’re thinking of
I think I read somewhere that these things are just small swamp coolers.
I’m talking about units like this:
Click to picture:
If it’s ads for “portable” systems, then almost certainly the underpowered swamp cooler-esque near-scam crap like Chillwell:
Ah, those. They work for small rooms.
ETA: IME, they’re loud, so if you’re trying to cool a bedroom at night, you can either be cool or sleep. Hard (but not impossible) to do both.
Ah yes, but that actually has a vent to the outside. The things I’m thinking about are supposed to be standalone in the room. They just can’t work, according to thermodynamics. Any more than perpetual motion machines…
They’re usually some sort of evaporation based “swamp cooler”. They use some of the energy in the air to evaporate some water, which will decrease the temperature of the air in exchange for raising the humidity in the room. That can work if you’re in a desert.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that no place UK has low enough humidity to take advantage of a swamp cooler.
Even if you were someplace that could make use of one, those little desktop ones can’t evaporate enough water to make any difference. An effective swamp cooler can be several cubic meters in volume, and have lots of material inside to give a huge surface area for evaporating water.
Here is a random internet photo of a “window unit”.
Correct. It is not as good as a window unit, but they work. Energy usage is relatively light these days.
I doubt it’s even a swamp cooler. There are a ton of scammy ads these days for “A/C” that are basically low power fans in a fancy looking plastic housing, all that hint at vague high tech engineering behind them and can cool rooms “up to 10 or 15 degrees”
True, but that’s why I asked to see an ad to verify what they’re selling and what claims they’re making.
Long ago I was an Electrician and then an HVAC mechanic so this is in my wheelhouse.
BTW, the portable units I linked to can often exhaust out a chimney also, which is a nice option. Probably a bit more common in the UK than US.
“Up to” is a nice phrase, isn’t it? I think these are obvious scams. And as I said I suspect the ‘testimonials’ are all fake.
You can’t beat the laws of thermodynamics…
Yes; it includes ‘cools room 0 degrees’ and is still, technically, a “correct” claim.
Anything making claims of ‘revolutionary’ or large-degree-change is likely a scam. On the other hand, there are small units that will blow cooler air on you (perhaps as you sit at your desk) if you keep them loaded with ice cubes.
Nothing revolutionary there. And likely the energy expenditure for the ice cubes, not to mention the energy to tend the little unit, are substantial. But sometimes getting through the hot weather is partly a matter of mental adjustment.
What makes ice cube-based solutions semi-legit is that you don’t need to cool down the whole room; you just need to cool the person in it. So even though you need to use energy (and heat up the room with the freezer in it) to make the ice, it might still be worthwhile overall.
Yeah, it’s a reasonable trade-off. (And it can make it easier to get work done!)
The one I’ve seen ads for looks like a scaled-down ductless a/c unit (a design that’s probably deliberate). With the cover off it consists of what looks like a small radiator attached to a brass box. Then the shill plugs it in and the “coils” are immediately coated with frost.
So not a swamp cooler, but if anything even more of a scam.