Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just what we need, May 19, 2008
Delivery was very expedient and the item arrived well packaged. This was certainly an very reasonably priced item considering that is it stainless steel and not plastic. We live in hot and humid South FL and an A/C is quite essential to have. This unit comes with a full set of accessories which was a plus as I had purchased an one several years ago that did not. It is quite nicely designed and the stainless steel looks great compared to those with the standard cream colored plastic housing. I setup the a/c in our master bedroom which is approximatley 200 sqft large. Setup was quite simple and even someone as technically incompetent as myself was able to get it all done in less that 15 mins. Turned it on and could immediately feel to cool air. I left the room and returned about 20 mins later and could feel that it was significantly cooler than before. The temperature in the room was probably around 80 before I turned it on and it felt like a comfortable 70 when I returned. We've been using it quite often for almost a week now, and I am very pleased with the performance and reliability. I may get one for my son in the near future.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is awesome, June 3, 2008
I work from home and have a small server room next to my study. It get extremely warm especially during the summer and the central A/C can seem to handle the heat output of the various devices. So I decided to follow advice I got from a buddy about getting additional cooling power with this Whynter portable air conditioner. First impressions was that it had a nice appeal to it with the stainless steel and "desktop" like shape. It read over the manual briefly and proceeded to get it going. Everything was fairly straightforward. My thermostat showed about 82F just before using the unit and after turning it on it climbed to about 83F for a few minutes before steadily dropping a couple of degrees ever 5-10 mins. All in all it took about 30 mins to get the area down to about 68F. The overal area of the study is about 120 Sqft, but I left the door to my server room open which added about 100Sqft of open area. The temp. in the server room was about 70F which was just fine. I've been running it about 6-8 hrs a day and the one little complaint is that it gets kinda loud when the compressor activates and the fan is on high. I otherwise extremely satisfied with this item. By the way, the remote is a real help, but keep it in a safe place cos it's quite small and easy to misplace.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
With some tweeking, its better than nothing, April 26, 2009
I've owned this model for a couple years. When I first got it set up, I was very dissapointed and gave it a 1 star review. The room temperature/humidity actually went up, the window kit melted out of place, and the self-evaporating feature broke the second night. I actually filed a BBB complaint against the internet retailer and got a full refund. They told me to keep the unit. Since then, I've worked out some issues so that when when we need emergency AC to supplement our building's central system, this unit offers some,albeit and expensive and noisy, assistance. For those giving this product a 1 star review, these remedies might help beef it up to 3 stars:
1) The biggest problem with ALL portable AC's is the duct hose...it emits enough heat to overcome any cooling that the machine supplies. I ordered a fiberglass/mylar insulating sleeve and put it over the hose. Big difference. All prtable ACs should come with this as a mandatory accessory.
2) The window kit...another problem: After the plastic one that came with the unit melted, I threw it out (along with the funnel shaped attachment) and fashioned my own out of the styrofoam packing blocks that came with the unit. I duct taped them together to the width of the window and at the end cut a hole that exactly fit the diameter of the duct hose. I bought some cheap foam rubber stripping that is used for sealing window ACs and put it on top of the styrofoam when the window is closed onto it. I keep insulated duct hose, and window piece attached to the unit when I store it. It takes up more space in the closet, but only takes minutes for an air tight set up that does not let the cool air out the window.
3)A lot of people complain about having their floors ruined by the failure of promised "self evaporation". There must be an internal pump that malfunctions easily. Mine broke almost immediatedly and the compressor would shut off unless the small internal drip tray was drained. If you take out the lower plug and tip the unit, the water will drain...onto the floor. There are two 'manual' hose outlets: a higher one (that is useless because its dependent on the pump) and a lower one (at the very bottom of the back). This is the one that will work because without the pump, the water will only drain from the very bottom. But of course this outlet relies on gravity. Here is what you have to do to over come the problem: Lift the unit onto a sturdy platform that is high enough to allow you to attach the drain hose (my unit came with one)and put the other end into a large bucket. I use an old desk top computer placed on its side. Yes, you have to empty the bucket once a night, but its better than a flooded floor or a compressor that keeps cutting off. Also, aside from accomodating the bucket, raising the unit about 8" off the ground helps because:
4) Hot air rises/cold air falls. Another design flaw of this AC is that the air is forced out thru vertical vents, so most of the cool air goes nowhere. Make sure to point the leuvers upward, and then put a small fan on the floor in front of the unit, also angled upward. This will help fan the precious cooled air up into the room and away from the floor.
Is all of this worth it? This unit is very expensive to run. We bought it for emergencies and could not imagine running the thing full time. With all the tweeking, we're talking about cooling a 180 sq ft room ~6 degrees. But at least with the above revisions (and ear plugs), you get enough cool air to make the difference between a sleepless night and a decent night's sleep.
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