I recently purchased the SPT 6500 BTU Window Air Conditioner for my apartment. Inside of said conditioner, there appears to be a large block of styrofoam taking up what would be empty space. Being from Texas and only ever having had Central Air, I am not familiar with window units and cannot tell if I am supposed to remove the styrofoam or not.
The instructions say nothing about this block of styrofoam. The customer service line does not pick up and will not return my calls. The website gives us no information either. So, dopers, who has a window unit and do you leave the styrofoam inside it, or will that cause a giant fire?
Hmm, unless it seems attached to something inside! I wold imagine that it’s just a part of the packing. Like if you buy a microwave? And you have styrofoam on the inside of it to keep the plate from bouncing around
The styrofoam appears that it is supposed to be there as part of the unit. The unit doesn’t look like it would come apart easily and the styrofoam is wrapped in plastic with a thick plastic card thingy separating 2 blocks inside next to the condensing coils. The instructions say NOTHING about removing the styrofoam at all, so my instincts tell me to leave it there but I don’t want to be the in the same category as the people who are dumb enough to eat the silica packets in shoes if they don’t have a label telling them not to eat it, you know? I did not know that they could be using styrofoam as part of the product though, so I am thinking that it is supposed to stay in there. I will wait and see if the customer service people call me back before installing it though because I don’t want to be the one who burned down the apartment.
I am an HVAC person, although I work on very few window units. I’ve worked on enough, however, to be familiar with the styrofoam you’re referring to.
If it integral to the unit, and it appears that it is “pre-formed” to fit in a specific place, than I am certain that it is insulation, and believe it or not, duct.