Air Conditioners Tips

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I bought this unit from Lowe’s for a little over $200. It was purchased for supplemental bedroom cooling as I need near freezing temperatures to get a good night sleep. Usually when I consider an appliance purchase, I look at the cost, features, warranty, operating costs. Based on those factors, and after comparing this unit with a similar Whirlpool unit, I settled on the Samsung with the warranty being the deal closer. I determined the appropriate BTU’s based on my room size and the literature from Lowes then chose the next higher recommended unit just to be sure I had my room cooling needs covered. The first week I used this, temperatures at 10pm were hovering around 90* but this unit was still able to do the job well. I love the quiet “white noise” this unit makes and the timer features although limited, are handy.

I consider myself a competent do-it-your selfer but installation was a hassle. It is my belief that the parts and instructions are not created with aluminum windows in mind. The fit and sealing never did come together as well as I hoped and I ended up using masking tape around the unit to plug obvious leaks. The process also requires you to remove the inside of the unit from the outside case. This exposes the metal cooling fins allowing you to bend and dent them during installation. Speaking of which, there is no “ball guard” to prevent kids from hitting the outside cooling fins and denting and bending them. If that happens enough, air flow is restricted thus reducing the effectiveness of the unit. Also, it would seem a good idea to use some screen wiring behind the intake vents to keep insects from entering the unit and possibly the house. However, doing so may be an alteration that effects your warranty.

Be careful with the instructions as they are printed as a guide to install several different units. Don’t make the mistake I did by assuming the directions for your unit start on page one, they didn’t and were found in the middle of the book. Fortunately the directions were all similar except for a few key features. When I got to the point where the directions made no sense, I thumbed ahead and found the correct version for my unit in a different section. There are also several grammatical errors indicative of foreigners writing instructions that sometimes don’t make sense.

The “Good Sleep” function described on the carton and easily set by a remote or front panel button makes this unit seem to monitor and adjust the room temperature to provide the ideal sleeping conditions all night long. This little marketing tool describes nothing more than an 8 hour preset function that simply turns the unit off after 8 hours. If I’m trying to get more than 8 hours of sleep, the unit suddenly shutting down would surely wake me up. A separate timer function will turn the unit on or off after a desired length of time and can be set to run from 1 to 24 hours. It would have been nice to have a clock function to give you the opportunity to set a precise on/off time every day of the week instead of hour increments that have to be set every day.

The electro static type filter is easy to access and cleans with a blast of air or under running water. The remote is handy and offers the exact same straight forward features as the front panel. Nothing hidden or complicated there. In contrast to the installation instructions, the operational instructions are better written and easily understandable.

With a push of the “Dry” button, this unit will also operate as a dehumidifier although I have not yet used that feature. The fan only function will circulate room air or draw outside air in for fresh air on cool nights. We live near a chicken house so we probably won’t be using that function much in the future.

The E-saver function is useless in my opinion. To save energy, it simply turns the fan off for 1 minute during the fan only cycle. After one minute, everything turns on and the unit begins the compressor cooling cycle. My thoughts that the constant starting and stopping of this fan every 4 minutes can’t be good for the overall life of the unit and would not be wort the cost savings that comes with the e saver feature. Annual operating costs provided by the attached Energyguide sheet show that it cost $77 dollars a year to operate this Energy Star appliance. However, this is based on the e saver function described above being used. Also, I like “white noise” of the fan and motor and the starting and stopping of the unit would be a detriment to a good night sleep for me.

All in all (and so far after some short term use) I recommend it. Follow-up notations may be in order as time goes on.

UPDATE 1: I would add this one inconvenience that has played out over a few weeks of use. Every function button whether used by remote or on the face panel causes the unit to BEEP. For example: If you make a temperature or fan speed change, the unit emits a loud beep with each press of the button which might disturb a light sleeper. SAMSUNG should allow this to be disabled by the user

Earlier I stated the bottom was completely open. This is not the case after the internal section is placed in the case during installation. My mistake.

ALSO, this review is for the current model A/C of similar BTU’s being offered by SAMSUNG. It is model number AW10ECB8 which is very similar with some minor changes. I have requested the current model to be added by Epinions category lead and will move it when it is available.

My opinion has not changed.

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Tags: , Air Conditioners, Home and Garden, Samsung AW1093L Thru-Wall/Window Air Conditioner

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