My portable air conditioner is nonfunctional. (It was a hunk o’ junk from a popular brand name–think Very Cold Air.) It’s in the 90s, and I don’t do well with heat. I live in a second floor apartment and can’t have a window unit. I’m also hoping to get one on sale, as money is fairly tight. And I can’t have an evaporative cooler because I live in a humid climate.
Can anybody recommend a good brand/model? I don’t trust my own judgment (or the reviews) since the one I got 5 years ago was a fiasco. I do trust yours, though.
That’s a really good question! Although I have no insight, the weather this week can definitely call for a new AC. I’m a box fan person because I just need a little circulation but an AC’s a whole other category.
It heavily depends on what “can’t have a window unit” means. The absolute best option in portable air conditioners these days is the Midea Portasplit where the condenser is placed outside. As far as I’m aware, Midea holds the patent on this design so there aren’t any competitors at the moment.
The next best if you can swing it are what’s referred to as “U Shaped Window ACs” which don’t take up the entire window space but only a small chunk.
Below that are portable ACs with TWO hoses, one for inlet and one for outlet. These are a smaller proportion of the portable AC market because they’re slightly more expensive to buy but noticeably better in efficiency.
Finally, if you have no choice, then you can get a single hose AC but these will have horrible energy efficiency and you might as well get the cheapest one because they aren’t really noticeably different in quality. Any manufacturer who wants to make a higher quality one will make a two hose model.
Hmm, sadly, all I can really speak on was when I saw them used as supplemental cooling in a datacenter when it was being built out faster than the building guys could keep up with A/C. They used pretty heavy duty models like the one below (but older tech, I last worked there about 10 years ago). They aren’t cheap (basically $4k), but they’d run on a 100% duty cycle without complaining. If money is no object, it will cool a very hot room quite well. I don’t think that brand makes consumer sized/priced units, though.
But that site has a pretty extensive selection, including smaller, less expensive models and square footage estimates, etc. It is however, set up to sell to businesses (it advertises net 30 terms).
As you’re probably aware, all portable AC units kind of suck, but it seems you don’t have a choice. Whatever you get, get a method of somehow exhausting the hot air it makes outside if your previous system didn’t.
Just to piggyback on this, you have to have a way to vent heat outside. Any machine that doesn’t do this is at best a floor fan and is more likely a very inefficient space heater.
If money is super tight and your apartment is more than a studio, I recommend getting a small unit for your bedroom and then locking it down tight with towels under the doors and so on. You don’t need much power to cool a single room.
My source is me: I live in Florida and my last place had a large hotel-style PTAC unit for most of the condo and a smaller unit in the bedroom. One summer the PTAC failed and I was able to stay plenty comfy in the bedroom while the rest of the house baked.
Thank you all for the information and advice. To clarify, I’m not allowed to have an AC unit that sits in the window because of the possibility of it falling. I’m able to vent a portable AC, as long as it’s out a side window. My now-defunct unit was a single-hose model that vented out one of my bedroom windows.
I should add that I have no car, so I’m looking for something that could be delivered. I live on the second floor, and USPS won’t deliver above ground level. UPS, Amazon, and FedEx will, though.
Thanks much. The site was interesting, but most of the units were out of my price range if you include shipping. I’m trying hard to keep this below $400, as I’m paying for my daughter’s divorce attorney (long and twisted tale) and am leery of withdrawing too much from savings. (I’m retired.)
Money is pretty tight right now. I’m OK with a unit that just cools the closed bedroom, as that’s what I had before.
I bought this unit 10 years ago, for an office in which I work from home that’s a loft space above our garage. It’s still working great after 10 years. My office gets awful hot on very hot Summer days. It’s a little over the ‘up to 500 sq. ft.’ recommendation, maybe 530 sq. ft., but the A/C works very well on all but the hottest days. When we have days in the upper 90s, like we did a couple weeks ago, it struggled to keep my office in the upper 80s, but I don’t think any portable unit could do better.
I just recently picked up two LG units, 8000 and 10000 BTU, from Home Depot. They have been very good at cooling, but I have only had them for just over a week, so I can’t vouch for the longevity.
That looks good, but I’m reluctant to go with Frigidaire since my latest unit was a Frigidaire. It arrived with the wrong slider piece: the hole was the wrong shape, so I had to jimmy the hose end through it and use duct tape and foam insulation to use it. I called Frigidaire, and they said they were out of the right kind of slider and there weren’t any in any of their warehouses anywhere in the world. I made do, but then last year the expandable hose cracked when I extended it, and this year, it completely came apart. Then the unit, itself quit. I’m sure I just got a lemon, but I’m reluctant to risk using that brand again.
Thank you for the recommendation, though!
That looks promising. How easy was the installation? (I’m not great at assembling stuff.) And how loud is it? I hope to get something that doesn’t disturb my downstairs neighbors.
This is a really good option. Midea uses inverter technology that is quieter, more efficient, and more able to accommodate differences in room humidity vs cooling needs.
It’s delivered by UPS, so hopefully they would deliver to your floor.
Edited to note that it says this is a “single hose” unit but it’s really a smaller hose surrounded by a larger one, so it gets the benefit if the increased efficiency of an inverter as well as drawing in air from outside.