Air Conditioners Tips

Whirlpool ACP102PS Portable Air Conditioner Review Whirlpool ACP102PS Portable Cooler I bought this cooler online at Best Buy and then went to the store to pick-up for $379.99. I couldn't find a bette...

Whirlpool ACP102PS Portable Air Conditioner Review Provided a good night’s sleep On July 11th, we came home to NO air conditioning in Jacksonville Fl. When I called the service people I was info...

This was my second attempt at purchasing a portable air conditioner. The first one, an 8000 btu Everstar, went back to Home Depot because it absolutely sucked. I have to say that I kept the Whirlpool because it does a better job. It’s 2000 btus more, and that makes a BIG difference in my 400 sq. foot space. It’s not outstanding, but it’s noticeable. I live on the ninth floor of a building in humid Baltimore. And, when I combine the machine with a ceiling fan, I can bring the temperature in that room to a much more pleasurable level–but it never gets *cold* exactly. One other piece of advice: keep all your packaging until you make sure you like the machine you purchased. If you buy your machine locally, you can take it back and get a full refund if it doesn’t do the job. It’s a pain in the butt, but I did it until I found a machine that worked well enough to cool my room.

This Whirlpool machine does a good job blowing air out of the top of the unit. Even if you pick a different machine, make sure you get a top-venting fan. If the vent is in the middle or the bottom, you won’t feel the cold air at all and you might become a victim of the dreaded “swing” effect. I had one with a middle vent and tried to put it in a corner to maximize its hideous ugliness, but it didn’t do anything to cool the room down. The swing feature seems to be the stupidest invention on record because all it does is seem to throw air toward one side of a room more than the other. Go for the top vent because then you will at least feel the actual air flow throughout a larger part of the room.

This machine seems to be the most attractive of all the units I’ve seen–but it’s still an ugly beast with an unmistakable presence in the room. It has a streamlined white face and the fan mechanism folds down into the machine when you turn the power off. But, don’t be fooled into thinking this alternative will somehow be more attractive than an in-window air conditioner. The only thing attractive about it is that you can roll it into a closet when summer is over and not lose the view from your window for the entire year. All of these portable machines also need to stick about two to three feet away from the wall–don’t be fooled by their photos. The exhaust hoses are huge and don’t bend very well–think a large ugly dryer vent and you’ll get the right picture.

The exhaust hose also contributes a good deal of heat to the room. I basically roll the machine 1/3 of the way into the space and then avoid the corner where the exhaust hose is. Though the packaging doesn’t warn you about this, this machine has a drain hose on the back that, when the machine reaches an “H8″ status, must be drained to continue operation. The really ineffective manual notes that you can just move it to a “drain location” or outside. This doesn’t really work in an apartment building or the top-floor of an old house. So, I’m imagining this will involve a bucket and a mess. But, I’ve been running it steadily for two weeks, and I haven’t reached H8 status. So, it might not be that big of a deal. The Everstar machine had a little drawer that filled up with the water. And, after two days, the drawer was almost completely filled. So, who knows?

This Whirlpool is also really noisy, and the noise level doesn’t go down even when you turn the temperature up and the fan speed down. It’s like having a large, noisy person in the room. I’m a writer–who else would write a 5000-word review on epinions ;)–and I sometimes just have to turn it off so that I can think. It also consumes a lot of power. The Energy Star rating on this machine is, I think, 7.8 when many other machines are in the 10s. (The higher the number, the more efficient the machin. Thus, it’s not really a surprise that it draws enough juice to flip off my circuit breaker every morning when I turn it on. You’re not supposed to put any of the new air conditioners on an extension cord–something that none of the manufacturers bother to mention on the outside of the box–and I received conflicting reports as to why this is now the case. Some people at Best Buy, Home Depot, etc., vehemently suggest it is because it will start a fire. And others say you are just fine so long as you use an appliance-grade extension cord and the reason for the warnings is actually because they suck too much energy off the machine. I bought an extension cord for $10 bucks at a hardware store, and it seems just fine. No fires yet I didn’t have a choice–there were no outlets near the only logical window and my building is run by a bunch of cheap people who, evidently, don’t care about fire risks enough to actually put in another plug or upgrade my current one . . . ) So, I think the circuit problem might be because of that. But, once the machine turns on and the fan vent pops up, I have no problem tripping the circuit and the machine stays on just fine.

One last point: these machines are not the easiest things to tote around so don’t buy into the idea that they are “portable” or “easily moved from room to room.” They are easy to roll on the casters, but they are heavy and awkward. And, two machines into this process, I would say that the window kits can be a bit tricky. I had the stupid idea that I could just roll this from my living room to my bedroom and reattach the hose each night. The real-life lazy factor kicked in, and I bought a cheaper in-window unit for the bedroom. The bedroom can get ice cold immediately. The portable unit stays in a larger solarium/living room space–approximately 400 square feet–and can get cool enough to have people over and keep them comfortable enough. But, I don’t think this machine could ever get any room ice cold–it just doesn’t have the juice that an in-window machine does.

MY RECOMMENDATION: If you don’t want a semi-permanent, in-window unit, this is a good solution. Given the availability and price of other portable machines, this one seems to be a reasonably good deal. Buy more btus than you think you will need.

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