Portable Air Conditioner. Suggestions?

[AustinRoepke]

I'm looking at getting a portable air conditioner for my room this upcoming semester.

The room is about 11' by 13', meaning that a loud air conditioner is REALLY loud.
The house is solid concrete and brick, not much insulation (if any). Swamp coolers won't work, because when you really want a/c, it's nice and humid out.

Judging by the other posts here, 10-12,000BTU a/c would be adequate. I don't want to have an underpowered unit, but I don't really want a loud one.

Has anyone found one that lies on the triple point of cost, sound, and performance for a room this size?

Thanks for looking,

Austin

 

[UPSHIFT]

Austin,

The company below has many different size air conditioners, not sure how quiet they are but they are worth looking into. Hope this helps..

http://port-a-cool.com/


Gabe

 

[nate379]

Is there a window in the room? Why not a window mounted unit.

As far as loud, dunno. I find it near impossible to sleep without some noise.

 

[AustinRoepke]

Is there a window in the room? Why not a window mounted unit.

As far as loud, dunno. I find it near impossible to sleep without some noise.

There is a window, but we aren't allowed to have window units (for liability reasons, I think).

 

[malibu101]

UPSHIFT mentioned Port-A-Cool brand. I just wanted to say I've seen that brand on many jobsites where the customer needed AC while the main system was down.
They are rentals. If they stand up to the rigors of the rental world, I'd say they'd be worth looking at.

 

[Todd.Brock]

Last week I bought a portable unit from LG at Home Depot. It was 299. It works pretty well and is pretty noisy. It sounds like a window unit. It has a hose that sticks out the window for hot air. Digital controls, etc. Cools real good. Its a 9k unit. Supposedly good for up to 400 sq. ft.

 

[BOONEY7750]

If you are worried about sound go with the smallest unit that will work for you. look into seperate air in and air out hoses for better circulation. The boxes do not say this, but the exit/exhaust hoses can only be up to 7ft in length. I learned the hard way when the squirl cage fan motor burnt up. Also your better units can serve as an electric space heater with a fan in the winter. I orginally ordered one from comfortaire(spelling) through doitbest.com with seperate in/out hoses and heater, as well as a daily programable thermostat. The heater option was discontinued and I wish I had it. I have the intake to the left 7ft from unit and exhaust 7ft to the right of the unit and the circulation is excellent like this. I also ran a drain hose. You will probally want to ditch the window board that comes with the unit and make one using a 1x6 and a dryer vent, it seals nice and keeps bugs etc out, and if the window is low or the unit is up high, such as on top a mini fridge you can route the drain hose through it too. I have a 11,000 BTU unit and it serves 2 small bedrooms well. I paid 499, it was 599 with the heat. I bet you could get the no heat 5,000 btu unit for less than 300. Good luck. p.s. make sure you change your breaker or fuse to at least 20a if you plan on having a plasma and computer or fridge in this room too. I run at about 13a draw when on hi.

 

[HOTFR8]

I have a portable Swampy in my Office in the Summer and it works well. Difference would be the heat here is dry most of the time.

 

[AustinRoepke]

Austin,

The company below has many different size air conditioners, not sure how quiet they are but they are worth looking into. Hope this helps..

http://port-a-cool.com/


Gabe

UPSHIFT mentioned Port-A-Cool brand. I just wanted to say I've seen that brand on many jobsites where the customer needed AC while the main system was down.
They are rentals. If they stand up to the rigors of the rental world, I'd say they'd be worth looking at.

Those units look tough! I'd like to get one of them, if swamp cooling is doable in central Illinois humidity...

Last week I bought a portable unit from LG at Home Depot. It was 299. It works pretty well and is pretty noisy. It sounds like a window unit. It has a hose that sticks out the window for hot air. Digital controls, etc. Cools real good. Its a 9k unit. Supposedly good for up to 400 sq. ft.

That sounds like a unit I'll have to look into. I think I might give up on finding a quiet one and just find a good one to run when it's ungodly hot outside.

If you are worried about sound go with the smallest unit that will work for you. look into seperate air in and air out hoses for better circulation. The boxes do not say this, but the exit/exhaust hoses can only be up to 7ft in length. I learned the hard way when the squirl cage fan motor burnt up. Also your better units can serve as an electric space heater with a fan in the winter. I orginally ordered one from comfortaire(spelling) through doitbest.com with seperate in/out hoses and heater, as well as a daily programable thermostat. The heater option was discontinued and I wish I had it. I have the intake to the left 7ft from unit and exhaust 7ft to the right of the unit and the circulation is excellent like this. I also ran a drain hose. You will probally want to ditch the window board that comes with the unit and make one using a 1x6 and a dryer vent, it seals nice and keeps bugs etc out, and if the window is low or the unit is up high, such as on top a mini fridge you can route the drain hose through it too. I have a 11,000 BTU unit and it serves 2 small bedrooms well. I paid 499, it was 599 with the heat. I bet you could get the no heat 5,000 btu unit for less than 300. Good luck. p.s. make sure you change your breaker or fuse to at least 20a if you plan on having a plasma and computer or fridge in this room too. I run at about 13a draw when on hi.

Thanks for the info! I probably won't need a heater, but nothin wrong with havin' too much technology . I'm pretty sure most of the rooms are on 20a, but I was planning on looking at the breakerbox before the semester started. The room's probably going to have a tv, two computers w/ lcd's, an xbox and a receiver with speakers and two minifridges... Could a swamp cooler hurt electronics in a small room?

5000btu is a lot less than I thought I would need, but I'm not much of a HVAC person. Actually, I don't know anything outside of a few charts given in lecture about the heat capacity of water vapor. I'll probably get a larger unit due to all the heat being dumped into the room by everything else.