About The Portable Room Air Conditioner
A portable room air conditioner is a free standing floor unit. Although it is a floor unit and is not installed into a window it does require venting. The vent is composed of two exhaust hoses which come with the unit and should not in any way be altered to fit a space. Shortening or lengthening a hose can void your warranty and also overheat the unit.
All air conditioners accumulate water condensation that has to be dealt with. The very simplest of portable room air conditioners have buckets that gather the condensation and have to be emptied every six to eight hours to about once a month depending on the size and usage of the unit. The more advanced models automatically dispose of the condensation by evaporating the moisture with air exhaust.
All portable air conditioning units are equipped with gravity drain hoses that eliminate the water by moving it upward to be drained out of a window.
A portable air unit can be used as a supplement to a cooling system that is already in place or as an independent unit that will cool a small space. A portable air conditioning unit’s ability to cool a desired space is based on its BTU (British Thermal Units) rating per hour. Not only does the portable air conditioner keep the area cool it will also dehumidify and keep the area dry.
The portable room air conditioner should not be confused with an air cooler which is designed to cool areas that the central cooling system does not reach or an area which is in direct sunlight. Some air coolers have cold compressors or ice packs with ionizing features to kill bacteria. The quality of an air cooler is determined by its price.
Many of the newer portable air conditioning units come equipped with energy saving devices, but the consumer should still be careful not to overload the electrical circuit with too many energy consuming devices. A portable air conditioning unit is made to run on 115 to 120 volts of electricity and do not require any special outlets.
There are many brands of portable air conditioners on the market and the consumer can choose the one that best suits their needs, i.e. maximum cooling area, venting, remote control, heating capabilities, if any, the speed of the units fan, and most of all the size.
If the unit is too small it will not be able to keep up with the cooling demands put upon it.
We have talked about size and cooling abilities but what about price? Depending upon the retailer from whom you would buy a portable air conditioning unit, the prices can range from four hundred dollars upwards of eight hundred dollars.
As with anything you buy to make the home environment more comfortable you should be thoroughly educated in what is out there after you have calculated your needs. Look into everything you can about the portable room air conditioner and ask as many questions as you can.
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