Portable Air conditioning Units still make rooms warm???

turbo77 on 23/10/2013 - 22:04

I had my portable aircon for about a year now for the bedroom where you would have the heat exhaust stick out the window with an adapter.

its works great ( if you stand in front of it that is) but the room still gets hot, i assume due to the compressor or whatever its called inside the unit generates heat that doesn't exit through the hose out to the window.

is there a way around this or not, read about people wrapping thermotape over the hose to prevent the heat from the plastics.

i cant install split system as i am renting atm. or is there a portable split system out there which i assume would be expensive.

Electrical & Electronics

Comments

  • ammark19xx on 23/10/2013 - 22:48

    Last summer, I handled this issue by closing in the heavy dark window drapes of my rental room around the hose and using a safety pin to essentially have the rear of the ac unit on the otherside (window side) of the drapes. This way, the heat that was generated from the compressor stayed 'behind' the drapes and didn't come into the room as much.

    This year I have an altogether different problem in that my current rental unit has glass window panes that swing open outwards, and I cant figure out how to set up the hose and seal the rest of the open window at the same time!

    • kwaker on 24/10/2013 - 10:02
      +2

      Thermal blankets the ones in first aid kits. About $1 or 2 on ebay

  • _Bruce_ on 24/10/2013 - 06:55

    Something is very wrong if the room is getting hotter regardless of how cheap your AC is.

    You need to make sure that the room is as sealed as possible and there is as little gap as possible where the exhaust exists a window (using a blanket can help). If you are doing this then your unit is probably just broken.

    • MATTDAMON on 24/10/2013 - 08:45

      Yep, another thing is ideally you should be buying a portable AC unit that uses water to cool the compressor and motor, which will cut down alot of the radiant heat from both the hose and from the unit itself. The OP hasnt mentioned the kw rating of his unit either.

      Ive got this unit http://www.domainappliances.com.au/air-conditioning/portable… which is 4.4kw cooling/4.8kw heating and it works suprisingly well, i use it for the bedroom which is a west facing room, double brick, i use blockout curtains and a door snake to seal the room up as best as i can. Keeps it at 20c even in 45+ degree heat outside.

  • kwaker on 24/10/2013 - 09:59
    +1

    Yes the old ones used to do it the newer ones are better. Use some cheap thermal blankets to seal/insulate a zone for the back of the machine where it can exhaust I.e window hole or door.

    Bruce you obviously never had one, they were shocking, you had too see to believe how bad. The back of the machine (not the exhaust) radiated more heat than they cooled. It wasn't a sealing problem.

    • _Bruce_ on 24/10/2013 - 12:11

      I had the cheapest AC you could buy in 2005 (and it was an end of line model). How old are you talking?

      If the net shift in temperature is higher, the product is broken.

      • kwaker on 24/10/2013 - 15:31

        Portable air con? I highly doubt it

        • _Bruce_ on 24/10/2013 - 18:52

          Sure was. Only gave up on 'Black Saturday' when 100% duty cycle couldn't keep the room under 30.

  • bb_hunter on 24/10/2013 - 10:21

    I wrapped the exhaust hose with bubble wrap, that seem to decrease the room temperture by couple of degrees. You have to get the one with bigger bubbles as this will insulate better.

  • brgnhntr on 24/10/2013 - 13:14
    +1

    IMHO the compressor or whatever it is should not the issue for the room being heating as the manufacturers would have considered this while designing it. I had a portable unit when I was rennting and it would fine. My room was bigger than a normal room as it was an old property (for some reason old houses had bigger rooms). My room used to face the sun throughout the day but the unit did a very good job. OP are u sure that there is no leakage through the window where u stick out the exhaust? or is the exhaust pushed/ screwed all the way in coz if it is not then the hot exhaust air would be making the room hot.

  • Jabba the Hutt on 24/10/2013 - 22:17
    +1

    The heat from the exhaust hose is one issue, but the other major factor is air has to be entering the room at the same rate it's being expelled out the duct, so the AC is fighting a very inefficient battle against hot outside air being rapidly sucked in. It's why floorstanding portables are more limited in their ability to cool than a split system or window AC, but through sheer wastage of power, they can manage to cool a small room more often than not. Even if you have an underpowered one that doesn't cool the entire room much, the 'spot cooling' can be much nicer than having 40 degree air blown at you by a pedestal fan.

    There used to be a decent alternative for renters in the form of TECO/Nationwide Electrical portable ACs that fit into a window, but they were regulated out of the market a few years ago thanks to the misguided energy regulator categorision of them as window rather than portable ACs. There have also been some dual-duct models that attempt to alleviate the problem of sucking hot outside air into the room, but the market is dominated by single duct portables.

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