advice where to get a portable conditioner from

shahedz

Distinguished Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
11,733
Reaction score
2,654
Points
2,364
My bedroom is a loft conversion, and summer is unbearable! already too hot. Anyone know where I can get one from

prefearbly small, cheap, quiet and with a timer!

cheers
 
Where are you? I've got one I never use, and its getting in the way....
 
I'm afraid if you're looking for quiet and portable it's going to be very difficult indeed.

The compressor is in the unit of a portable where as a fixed installation has the compressor mounted outside so is much quieter.

I bought a mobile unit from homebase last year for 150 quid. It works a treat but is a little noisy. It's not unbearable and when the room is sweltering the noise is worth it. It has a timer too but is not what i'd call small.

Unfortunately your criteria of small, quiet, cheap and with a timer is simply not possible.

If you can live with cheap and with a timer, the one I have is perfect.
 
mobile unit for £150 would be ideal. i guess noise wouldnt matter that much then, do they actually cool down the room temeprature or just blow cold air?

cheers
 
I'm near Reading (M4 J11). If you're ever out this way then you're welcome to drop in and have a look. But I'm guessing you might be too far away??
 
mobile unit for £150 would be ideal. i guess noise wouldnt matter that much then, do they actually cool down the room temeprature or just blow cold air?

cheers

It makes your nipples go hard after half an hour.:eek:

Seriously, it works a treat. Last year when it was over 30 degrees it cooled the room easily by 5.

The only thing to bear in mind is the exhaust pipe, it's not very long because it gives off loads of heat which will make the conditioner pointless if it's much longer so just make sure there's a window or some other outlet close to where you want to use it.

I was so smug last year when it was sweltering, 150 quid very well spent. I even carry it to the bedroom every night when it's hot and tell it how much I respect it.
 
cheers mate. gonna scour homebase to find one now, knowing my luck the prices have all gone up now

They usually start the summer at around 200 quid but drop quite quickly. It's happened 2 years in a row so I don't see why this year would be any different.

I don't think they do the one I have any more but this one looks very good for the dosh and is currently the cheapest one I could find on Homebase and Argos's websites.

It also has a remote control and is a lot smaller than my unit while having the same power rating.
 
Got one from Homebase several years ago when my wife was heavily pregnant and wilting in the heat, very noisy but blasts out cold air and can cool a room if you follow the room size recommendations. Daerve's comment about the hose is spot on, keep the hose run as short as possible, wrap towels around the hose if you can, the machine produces more heat than it can ever take away (Laws of Physics etc), so the more exhaust heat you can get outside the better.

Dave
 
One point that nobody has mentioned is that there are several types of portable cooler.

The simplest and cheapest type is an evaporative cooler which simply blows air over a surface which is kept moist. The heat needed to evaporate the water is taken from the air, which cools as a result. The downside is that the air humidity rises. This is fine on a hot, dry day, but not what you need on a humid day - and in fact it would have trouble providing any cooling on such a day.

"proper" portable air conditioners come in two varieties:

A single unit combines the evaporator and condenser coils in the same case. The waste heat is disposed of by passing some of the air from the room over the condenser coils and expelling that through a pipe to the outside. The problem with this is that warm air has to be drawn into the room to replace the air lost. For this reason, this type of unit is more suitable as a spot cooler. It may make you a lot more comfortable if you are sitting in front of it, but its ability to reduce the overall temperature and humidity of a room is limited.

A split unit has the condenser coils and a fan in a seperate unit outside, and the refrigerant is fed to it via a pipe. This means that no air from the room is lost expelling waste heat, so these units are much better at cooling and dehumidifying an enclosed space.

Edit: A single unit could be designed to draw air in from outside via the pipe. I'd be interested to know if any of them do in fact work that way. I've always wondered why the ones I've seen weren't!
 
Is there any type of cooling device that doesnt require an external vent??
 
Homebase having a 10% off weekend, 9k BTU model 636212 £161.99...:smashin: (website says delivery only but my local store had a heap of them)

Tested in the bedroom last night, lowered temp from 22 to 18 in an hour, even with the window cracked open for the elephants trunk...
Noise...yes, but quite impressive
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom