Portable Air Conditioner (for apartment)

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  georgedeka on 20/10/2011 - 16:39

  Bunnings - heard they had one for $350ish

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  vietbargain on 20/10/2011 - 21:04

  second's world on parramatta world is where a couple of my mates got theirs. "tiny ding, huge savings" trolololol

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  llama on 20/10/2011 - 23:41

  +1

  There are a few different types of these - be cautious and do your research.

  Firstly, something has to get rid of the moisture that is removed from the air. Is that going into a tray, or back out the window vent or via a drain pipe? I have one that uses a tray, and it is a pain in the butt - on a humid Sydney night it can pull about 2 litres of water out, fill up the tray and shut itself down!

  Next, be aware that the ones with a flexible vent pipe are amazingly inefficient. The fact that they are rated (say) 2400W cooling doesn't mean that they have the same performance as a 2400W wall or split system. I'd reckon they are about 1/2 the capability!

  The way that most of the cheaper ones work means that they continuously pump all the cool air out the window! What happens is that they pull in air from near the floor, and send some of that room air up through the chilling section which then gets blown at you. But they also take some of that cool room air and pass it over the heat exchanger, and then blow that down the vent tube and outside.

  In a normal air-conditioned room, you seal the room and the A/C recirculates the air, cooling it by 5 degrees or so each time it passes through. After a while, the whole room becomes cool.

  With a rear-vented portable A/C, it is always blowing a massive amount of cooled room air straight out the window. So, whilst the air from the blower is fairly cool, it never really cools the whole room. That is because they are continually pulling in warm air from outside (usually under the door) to replace that expelled air going down the vent pipe.

  Also, the vent pipe is really hot and radiates heat back into the room. We found that wrapping the vent in a blanket to insulate it dropped the room temps by about 2 degrees! Anyway, from my experiements and tests, I found that a portable with window vent can only drop the room temps by about 5 degrees… which is not very much when it is 35 or 40 degrees outside!

  They are effectively a "spot cooler" rather than a room cooler, like a fan that blows colder-than-room-temperature air.

  There are some types that don't have these limitations. One is the portable split, which uses flexible pipes between the interior unit and a separate fan/condensor that sits outside. These are expensive but work exactly the same as a proper split system. We have a Dimplex one rated 3500W, and it is awesome.

  Regarding the blowing of room air out the vent pipe, I think there are some types of portables where they draw the air from outside, blow it over the condensor, then expel it again. Kind of like how a power-flued gas heater works. This method means that the device will have some chance of actually cooling the room itself.

  Anyway, to sum that up - our bedroom is 3.6m x 5.4m and poorly insulated, but has only small windows. The split system recommended for that room is 3500W. A 2400W portable drops the room temp by less than 5 degrees, running absolutely flat out continuously. A 2400w Window mounted A/C drops the same room's temps about 8-10 degrees, but still struggles on the really hot nights.

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  scrimshaw on 21/10/2011 - 00:05

  I have a Delonghi Pinguino. Cost us about $599 when we bough it, and what a rip it was.

  It doesn't seem to do a good job of cooling the room down and the lowest temp it gets down to is about 22 degrees.

  But in my smaller room, I have a cheapo sub $250 dollar, Arlec branded aircond (from Bunning's Warehouse) which apparently does a better job of cooling the room down. In fact the lowest temp you can set on the cooler is 18 degrees, which is 4 degrees lower than what my $599 portable air cond can do.

  So yeah, I'm not exactly sure why this is and why a aircond that costs half as much can do so much better. But it definitely pays to see what kind of cooler you're buying into and inquiring about how well the unit can perform.

  • 

    llama on 21/10/2011 - 00:28

    +1

    We tested a Pinguino in our bedroom as well. They are more advanced than our other portable in that they don't have a tray for the removed moisture. They use the water to cool the compressor a bit, then shoot it out the rear air vent as humid air.