Need Cheap but Efficient Portable Air Conditioner for Melbourne

Lpeanut48 on 13/03/2016 - 08:50

Hi, I've just moved into a rented apartment without air conditioning and looking for a portable air conditioner for the odd few days of heat we get here in Melbourne. I've read a lot of comments here on how they are not efficient or don't do the job. I'm aware of the limitations but as a tenant I don't have much option and would like to get some respite than none at all.

I have three problems, my apartment is a loft style with the bedroom upstairs and living/dining downstairs on the 27th floor of a CBD building. Second, I have a large sliding door to the balcony in the living area and a crank out style window in the bedroom. Third, My apartment is east facing and gets extremely hot during the day as it gets the full sun through the balcony and windows.

I skipped the Kogan Portable Air Conditioner deal after reading the comments and given my situation realised it just won't cut it. I don't know the size of my apartment and can't really guess but I reckon I'll need something powerful to do the job.

Looking for a bargain here and hoping to find one now that Summer is going away.

Thanks in advance!

Find Me A Bargain

Comments

  • try2bhelpful on 13/03/2016 - 09:08
    +1

    We have a similar layout with our place. We do have a portable air conditioner but we only really bring it out when we get several 40 degree days in a row.

    The way we deal with it is:
    a) We have bought a combination of reflective insulation, see URL below, and a couple of car windscreen reflectors and taped them together with a pole and a string to hold them up. We hang the string over the winder in the window and then use another car reflector to cover off the window; they jam in pretty good. This reflects a reasonable amount of the heat before it gets into the room.

    http://www.bunnings.com.au/ametalin-1200-x-450mm-pleated-sil…

    b) We have also bought two pretty powerful fans to blow air across us, we have one for downstairs and one for upstairs. When it gets cooler in the evenings we open up all the doors and windows and blow cool air into the house. If it is still hot we leave the one in the bedroom on overnight and, although it is audible, I don't have any issues sleeping with it on.

    http://www.kambrook.com.au/in-the-home/cooling/kambrook-arti…

    This combination seems to work really well. We haven't had to drag the air con out this year.

    • peanut48 on 13/03/2016 - 09:18

      Thank you for your reply, I'm trying to picture this but still struggling. Probably need a coffee first.

      • try2bhelpful on 13/03/2016 - 17:49

        Sorry hard to explain, but the idea is create a square of reflective material that covers all the window/door. That way the heat doesn't come in through the window. I think it would work best if you can put it on the outside of the window/door but we usually have it on the inside and it still works pretty good. We use the pole to give the reflective stuff a bit of shape and to connect the cord to so we can hang it off the winder on the window above the door.

        • peanut48 on 13/03/2016 - 23:28

          Thanks, making more sense now!

  • Diji1 on 13/03/2016 - 10:27

    I have no idea if this is correct but I looked up the requirements for regular aircon power vs. room size and assumed I needed twice the power due to the decreased capacity for moving energy out.

    It's more than possible that this is completely wrong as I'm not at all qualified but so far tempratures have been OK and I haven't been surprised by a large bill after one summer.

  • JIMB0 on 13/03/2016 - 12:12
    +1

    I purchased a large DeLonghi W160a 6 years ago for $1100 at Harvey Norman. It would cool a large lounge room no problems (25m^2). Noise isn't too bad but its still too loud to sleep with it on in the bedroom, was bearable with ear plugs in though. If you run it with water for greater efficiency the noise is worse. Seems to be a lot of them on Gumtree for around $300-$400.

    Before I got the DeLonghi I had a cheap $400 unit from Bunnings. It made more noise than cool air so I returned it.

    I don't use air-con in the house much now. Exercising in the heat seems to have made me much more tolerant of the heat and now I'm happy with just a fan, unless its really humid.

  • Vampyr on 13/03/2016 - 12:42

    Cheap + efficient + portable = oxymoron.

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