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Portable Air Conditioner | Portable AC Unit

A portable air conditioner that can be rolled from room to room is a great option if window space in your home or office is limited or you’re in a building where regular room air conditioners are not allowed.  If you only need to cool one or two rooms, a portable air conditioner is a very sound, economical choice since it’s cheaper for everyday use than a central air conditioning system.  The secret to cooling the most efficiently is choosing the right strength for the air conditioner.  You’ll also need to know what rooms need to be air conditioned and the rooms’ combined square footage.  If regular air conditioners are prohibited in your building, make sure to find out why.  Older buildings with older electrical wiring might ban them portable air conditioner for safety reasons.

Portable air conditioners are available at capacities of approximately 6,000 to 60,000 BTU/h, or 1,800 to 18,000 watts output.  Just like a car or a regular household air conditioner, air-cooled portable air conditioners are compressor based refrigerant systems that use air to exchange heat, and the air is dehumidified as it is cooled.  Condensed water is collected from the cooled air then produces hot air which needs to be vented outside of the cooled area.

Types of Portable AC Units

Portable air conditioners come in two forms, the split and the hose.  A split system has a wheeled indoor unit connected to an outdoor unit by flexible pipes in a manner like a permanently fixed installed unit.  There are two kinds of hose systems, the air-to-air and monoblock, which are vented to the outside.  The monoblock system collects water in a tray or bucket and stops when full.  With the air-to-air system, the water is re-evaporated and discharged through the ducted hose.  The air-to-air type can run continuously.

There are some other factors to consider when buying a portable air conditioner, such as the potential for noise since all the mechanical components of a portable unit are inside the room.  Moisture is another issue to be concerned about.  The water that accumulates during a portable air conditioner’s operation goes into a drain tank.  Most of this water cools the condenser coils so that it evaporates and gets discharged through the exhaust duct.  Some portable air conditioner models don’t use this water, however, so it’s necessary to empty the tank once or twice a day during normal usage.

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