Customer Reviews

SPT Portable Air Conditioner, 7500 BTUs, WA-7500M

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In comparison, my 500W window AC runs cooler, but this 620W portable is so much more convenient. In my area, we need an AC only for few days a year; it was a pain to mount/unmount the window AC in summer/winter. So this one is perfect here, just plug it to the power and window and we have a good night of sleep.

It uses only 620W (300W less energy consumption than other portable ACs in this class), so we set it to the lowest temperature and let it cool continuously. The noise level is acceptable; we place it on upstairs and can barely hear it downstairs. Ran it for 24 hours and no need to drain water. In case the light says the tank is full, don't drain the water too much as the water tank is used to cool down the machine for better efficiency. I also cover the hot hose with thick cloth.

During a heat wave, we start it in the morning with all windows closed and it keeps our house to 87F while the outside is 105F. Without this AC, temperature would be 91F even at downstairs, too high to stay with and upstairs would be simply baking. 87F is OK, especially for a day or two only. After the sun goes down, we still leave it on but open all the windows. This helps hugely on a heat wave in a otherwise cool area like Oregon vally. Hard to live without it. However, I think it is useless in a hot area like Texas.

The window mounting kit was missing, called SPT and a gentaman told me it would arrive in 3-5 days. What a customer support! While I'm waiting for the kit, I simply cut a hole on a small flat box and it works like a charm.

Unless your wife is a neat freak who asks you to unmount a window AC every winter, then don't buy a portable AC. The latter is significantly less cool than the former. But if you're as lucky as me and your area is not hot enough to worth a central AC, then you'd better get this.

I bought this unit to replace a window AC that is no longer allowed in our condo building. The primary purpose is to dehumidify our entire condo (only 850 square feet), so we are using this unit for a space larger than it is designed to cool. But, even so, it works well and it has a phenomenal Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of 12.5, so you get 7500 BTU cooling for only 650 watts of power.

To respond to the previous review that rates this unit poorly, I'd like to go over the points that reviewer mentioned from my perspective...

1)drying the air - this unit will take the relative humidity in our condo down more than enough to make a muggy day comfortable indoors. If we turn the unit on early before the heat of the day, it will maintain the temp in our condo as it drys the air, not bad for a unit designed for a small room.

2)it must be drained of water - true, but most of the water it produces is evaporated over the heat exchanger and sent outside. A small amount of residual water is what you must empty and we find the unit will run for several days continuously before emptying is needed. A light indicates when the water tank is full. The drain is very low as the previous reviewer mentioned, so it is helpful to roll the unit to a stair-step so you have some clearance below it for the water to pour out. This is an inconvenience but unless you have trouble bending over, not a difficulty.

3)it has wheels that are small - yes, it may take effort to roll over a carpet (unit is 60 pounds) but no problem on hardwood floors.

4)hard to move, nothing to grip - haven't found this to be a problem. There are handles (one on each side) and anyone who is able to handle the weight should have no problem. No air conditioner is light and compared to wrestling with a window unit this model is a snap to move.

5)poor window exhaust seal - I don't understand this criticism. The unit comes with panels and a pre-cut hole for the exhaust hose. All fit together tightly to make a tight, rattle-free seal with no duct taping required. The panels allow a fit to any size double hung window.

The unit has two squirrel-cage fans, one for cool air, one for exhaust. The noise they produce is from rushing air, not motor noise so there is no annoying hum or buzz. There are only two fan speeds and they don't differ much. If I had my wish I'd want a slower speed available. The amount of air moved is great. I can sit in a chair twenty feet away from the unit in another room and feel the draft, so I use the unit as a fan when the cooling/dehumidifying isn't needed.

The exhaust hose will expand or contract to fit the length you need to reach the window from the back of the unit. There is a quick disconnect that snaps the hose into the unit, so you can quickly disconnect the hose if you need to move the unit for any reason. The hose screws into the plastic fittings at both ends so it won't pull apart on you.

The exhaust air to the outside is hot. As a result the hose will get warm. That warmth adds to room warmth and you don't want that heat in the room. I recommend wrapping some vinyl backed fiberglas insulation around the exhaust hose to keep the exhaust heat from the room you are cooling.

This unit has ONLY an exhaust hose. Without the intake hose of more expensive models, it must take room air and exhaust it outside. This means warm, humid air will be pulled into the room as a result. This lowers the cooling and dehumidifying efficiency but we haven't noticed this to be a problem.

Let me start off by stating the circumstance that inspired my purchasing this product. I live in Louisiana, which is one of the most humid states in the nation. The central air unit in the apartment I live in has a freon leak due to maintenance overflowing the compressor with it which lessens the amount of cool air it can release. The owner (landowner) does not want to front the funds to replace it, and naturally, with temperatures these days in the mid and high 90s, my apartment can get pretty hot. So, I started checking around for portable air conditioners when a friend suggested I do so, and I stumbled onto the product page for the SPT WA-7500M 7,500 BTU Portable AC with Manual Controls. After doing a little research, this item had pretty good reviews with a few lesser ones here and there. Taking a chance, I went ahead and bought it, and let me tell you, I don't regret it one bit!

SETUP

The SPT WA-7500M is very easy to get set up. All you have to do is connect the hose to the unit and to the window slider kit (which can be extended either horizontally or vertically depending on your window type). Be careful though, for what holds everything in place are small screws that if you drop accidentally can be very tedious to find. Next, place the filter into the unit, then you're ready to go!

OPERATION

Let me say that with it being 7500 BTUs, it can work effectively for a room no larger than 200 sq. ft. (where the room I have it in is about 150 sq. ft.). Any room larger than that, then you may want to consider purchasing one with a higher BTU rating. Otherwise, this product will do fine. It has three nobs which control various things, as well as four LED indicators that signal whether it has power (from the outlet), if fan operation is working, if cooling is turned on, and if the water tank (collects the moisture in the air as it cools the room) needs emptying. The three nobs control the thermostat, fan operation, and timer (where the max time is 8 hours). I set the thermostat to about one bar shy of its coolest setting, set the fan operation to low cool, and set the timer to 8 hours. It ran beautifully. I could feel the temperature in the room drop very steadily, and the room reached a very comfortable temperature for me in about three hours, which is fascinating since my central air cannot do that in 24! When the timer reached 8 hours, the unit shut down completely on its own. I did not have to turn any nobs or anything, for it handle that step itself.

Overall, I have had a great experience with this product. I recommend it to anyone who has a small room that you could use a cooling boost for added comfort.

We have the WA-1220M model of this product (virtually identical). If you stand right in front on it, up to about 5 feet away, it's nice. However, it has several drawbacks:

1. It isn't very good at drying the air; evaporation is needed for effective air-conditioning (whether in your car or your home).

2. It must be drained of the water it does pull from the air, and draining the unit is very cumbersome. It comes with a small flexible plastic tube that has to be connected to the rear bottom of the unit; the other end must be lower in order to drain or the unit really does very little and although there's an indicator light that will come on if the unit is quite full of water, it's very rare that the light comes on (and it only does so LONG after the unit has stopped cooling the air). We have taken to wrapping a large towel around the far end of the tube to collect water that drains, but basically you must tilt the heavy unit backwards to try to drain it. This is not particularly effective but it must be done.

3. It has wheels, but it doesn't roll easily (it's hard to push or pull it in a straight line and the wheels are so small even getting over a low rug is difficult.

4. Moving the unit up or down a single step can be accomplished by one person but since the entire unit is made of very smooth, slippery plastic (it has handles but they're very shallow & not helpful), it's more safely accomplished with two people.

5. Consider that this unit, while mobile, sacrifices a good window seal. The large exhaust hose (which pumps the hot air outside) resembles a telescoping dryer hose that easily falls out of the backside of the unit and is awkward to extend evenly. The unit comes with a smallish piece of foam with a cutout hole for the hose. However, you are left with having to find some way to block the rest of whatever window you choose to put the hole into. We use a large carboard box panel and cut a hole out of, then duct-tape the box into the window opening to block out air seepage. As you can imagine, it looks pretty tacky.

We wouldn't buy this again.

It blows slightly cooled air which even on high takes a bit to lower the room temp barely at all. Also, the water tray fills within a few hours of running if I don't have it going somewhere (which I now do), and I don't even live in all that humid of a climate. Water is not easily removed either, have to let it out the pipe.

As has been said, if it is at all possible to use a window unit, do so. I have crank outs so it sadly wan't for me.

on june 2nd i purchased this air conditioner. At the end of september, the air conditioner stopped working so i called amazon's customer service to see how i might get the air conditioner repaired.
amazon advised me that even though the order was from amazon, they would not take responsibility for any of it. Amazon gave me the number to the manufacturer of the product.
the manufacturer did not have record of my purchasing the item. Additionally sunpentown said that i could send it to their warehouse on my own dime (approximately 60 us dollars) and they
would fix it.

my question was: why would i have to incur the cost of shipping when it is covered under a one year warranty?

the bottom line is that no one will take responsibility for a crappy product that broke conveniently after the 30-90 day return window.

i recommend NOT purchasing this product. it is crappy and will most likely break after a few months.

I did a lot of research on portable ac units and this one was one of the above average rated ones, but it did not cool the my room (20' X 15') because it sucked hot air from the attic and surrounding areas and made the room hotter. It made the room drier, but it raised the temp instead of cooling it.

Pros:
price
12.11 EER rating, very efficient
6 amps, low amps wont trip breaker
60 lbs. light weight compared to other portable ac units

Cons:
creates negative air pressure, sucks hot air in from attic and other areas
54 dB rating, noisy

If you have no choice but to buy a portable ac, buy one with 2 hoses. It gets the air from outside and cools the evaporator and blows hot air outside. It does not create a negative pressure (sucking effect), this drawing of air from the outside makes the room hotter, especially if you have it installed near an attic.

Will be returning unit and getting a casement window unit which is much quieter, efficient and less space hog on the floor.

My mother has emphysema and needed a way to only breathe dry cool air. This air conditioner has been the perfect solution.

I bought this air conditioner because my room, top floor with attic access, gets the most heat in the house, and gets the least air from the central air conditioning. It does a great job at keeping my room cool (about 140 square feet).

The Bad: It does only have exhaust out, which creates negative pressure in the room (other reviewers said it would pull hot air from the attic, it doesn't or isn't noticeable at least in my case, nice and cool)
It fills up the condensation reservoir rather quickly (under 12 hours of continuous operation in mild humidity will fill it up).
This is a problem because though its not overly difficult to move, moving it when full will spill (seems the internal reservoir spills easy, you'll notice water on your carpet when moving)
It comes with a hose to drain, but the problem with that is, where? Most people dont exactly have drain's next to windows.
The drain is way too low, so trying to drain it with the hose into an external container (like i'm doing) requires you place the unit ontop of something, and even then you'll need to take the external container and dump it more frequently.

What i've done which solves those problems is buy a small fishtank pump, and hooked it into the external container that water drains into, drilled a small hole in the window piece to stick the hose through so it can drain out the window.

Overall its a good unit and does its job, though it creates a /lot/ of water (my external container is about 2 liters, in 3 hours it gets about 2/3rds full)

So far (day 2) this has been a great little unit. This AC is used to cool A small (12*12) room that has some electronics equipment and faces west which results in warm afternoon sun. Because of this, it gets about 5 degrees warmer in here than the rest of the house. Instead of / to supplement the whole house AC, I use this to cool this room. So far it has been working great. I installed this "permanently" by drilling a 5 inch hole into the drywall of the room out to the garage. The outlet on this device is exactly 5 inches and it fits perfectly. The hose runs between the walls into the garage. I used come weather strip to make a tight seal between the wall and the hose. The unit has a timer to control how long it is on with a permanent "on" setting. There is a thermostat that goes from 62-90 degrees F (but there is no indication of unit on the dial... just markings.). It also has low fan, high fan, low cool and high cool. I leave it on low cool because if it is not too warm it will function as a fan if the thermostat is not too low. I set it at about 78 and just use the fan if the ambient temperature it is below this. Living in southern California, with low humidity, I have not noticed any issue with the drainage as discussed in some of these reviews. I will monitor and report if this changes. Also the fan mode with use the stored water to help cooling. On a recent hot day it was 80 degrees in here. After an hour of cooling it was a nice 76. This unit is perfect for my needs. If the unit lasts it will be a great purchase.

Update: 6/30/2011 - The water unit reservoir filled and had to be emptied. This took about 3 months and i am guessing 40 hours of light use in Southern California. I switched to continuous tube drainage and cannot imagine using this unit knowing I would having to drain it. I will post later how long it takes to fill the container in the garage.