Hi. Anyone has one ?

Seen they have one largish hose to vent the heat out trough a window.
What is the source or replenishment of that exhausted air volume ? Is it leaks as under a door ?
Seems not a wise/efficient method to cool the condenser, as the cooled air in the room is the one wasted cooling the condenser.

If had two hoses, one for exterior intake and one for exhaust would make sense. How does it work ?

 

From: https://homeairguides.com/air-cooling/how-does-a-portable-air-conditioner-work/
Single hose versus dual hose units
How portable air conditioner works to cool down a room is through the use of a hose that’s vented to the outside.

Portable air conditioning units will either have one exhaust hose for hot air or they will have two.

If your unit has one hose, it takes air from the room that it is placed in and then returns most it after the cooling process. However, since a small amount of air is always removed from the room, it will cause some negative pressure.

If your unit has two hoses, one will be to bring air in from the outside, and the other will exhaust it. Dual hoses will not create the negative pressure like the single hose, but because of this design it does result in less efficiency.

 

The replenished air comes from the house. One thing to be aware of is that so-called "drainless" room A/C's may need a drain depending on the humidity, outside temperature and temperature setting. My Frigidaire flooded my carpet on a typical warm, Ohio day. I now use a drain whenever I use it.

 

Probably better off with a window unit if you have a sash window to fit one in. At least they drip to the outside when the condensate pan gets full and only recirculate the inside air instead of sucking in hot outside air under the doors and anywhere else it can.

 

No doubt a window unit has to work better/efficiently than these; which are mostly marketed to apartments or buildings with restrictions on exterior visual impact.
The dual hose should be vastly better, but these single hose type; how can they cool anything if the cooled room air ends at the exterior after cooling the condenser ?

 

It has to have a fan across the coil to push the hot air out. But it is taking it out of the cooled air being circulated into the room. I don't see any insulation on the hot air exhaust tube to the exterior either so it is losing some of that back into the room also. My wife was showing me one that hung on the wall with NO ducting. HUH!?!? How in the world can it do anything if it's venting the condenser heat into the room?

 

In a single hose air conditioner, indoor air is drawn, filtered, cooled and returned to the room.
A small amount of air is drawn over the condenser and vented outside.

Check this:

https://www.dudegrows.com/convert-portable-air-conditioner-single-dual-hose-design/

 

I have seen these "Portable" type units used on construction sites here in the south. Used to cool tent or just an area enclosed with visqueen plastic sheeting. But they sit on the edge of the barrier and use a hose to carry the exhaust away so the hot exhaust doesn't just get sucked back into the unit. Cold air into the temporary enclosure and hot exhaust piped a short distance away. I can't imagine using one for serious A/C but someone must be buying them or they wouldn't be selling them.

 

For some reason they rate these devices in BTUs !! what the hell are they?( I do know really)

10,000 BTUs is about 1KW of input power , that's quiet considerable , about a third of a standard AC ....

Negative pressure inside the room will be negligible , air can always find it's way in through door gaps etc

You do have to drain water regularly , or have a hose leading to the outside.

 

@Externet Single hose unit just cools condenser with room air which is bad deal cuz o/c lowered room pressure just draws in more hot/humid air from other source (which is ultimately from outside bldg)! So I say plz just use proper _window unit_ or if that's not option use portable unit equipped with BOTH inlet and exhaust hose for condenser blower (which you can extend with _dryer vent tube_ to reach two separate windows if single window is too small for both hoses)!

PS Sry if I just _echoed_ anybody but my connection is so bad right now I can't get page to load properly

 

Dual hose to the same window is a valid point. You'd just be sucking back in the hot exhaust. These just don't make any reasonable sense to me. If you were in a windowless room and had some way to get the exhaust hose outside in a short insulated hose maybe...

 

You can close the air exchanger vent on every window unit I have ever used, and then they work pretty much the same as a single hose portable. Never had any problem with “negative pressure”.

Also window units have to draw air from the same window.

EDIT: ok after thinking about it, they don’t work the same…open mouth insert foot.

 

If the unit can be elevated you could attach a drain hose and run it outside, we have a similar problem when visiting my wife's mother. I will purchase one since all she has is a fan, July is a killer. I will just stuff something against the doors to prevent loss to other rooms, a single unit for a bedroom should work well.

kv

 

You can close the air exchanger vent on every window unit

Yeah on some of the larger models but I always ran them on recirculate same as in the car to get better cooling. Lots of things can cause "negative pressure" but I haven't met a house yet that was anywhere near hermetically sealed and I have tried to come as close as I could when I built this one years ago. Dryer vents, fireplace flues, gas and oil heater flues, gas water heater flues, kitchen vents, etc. In fact, if the house is too tightly sealed it negatively affects the discharge flow of the flues/vents which is usually not a problem.

 

I remember many a miserable night as a kid in GA and FLA with only a small oscillating fan and no A/C in the house or cars then. Living the life of Riley now with HVAC systems the norm.

 

Dual hose to the same window is a valid point. You'd just be sucking back in the hot exhaust. These just don't make any reasonable sense to me. If you were in a windowless room and had some way to get the exhaust hose outside in a short insulated hose maybe...

Even if the inlet and outlet ports were right next to each other you would only be sucking in a small fraction of the exhaust air -- mixing with the outside air occurs very quickly. If they are separated by even a foot, there would be very little mixing. To make it even more so the exhaust duct can very easily be made to direct air away from the intake duct and the intake duct can similarly draw air from the direction opposite the exhaust duct -- then even if they are side by side the amount of recirc would be very small.

 

I have one of those single hose units. It works incredibly well (even used it as a heater this past winter when the apartment building lost heat). No drain... condensate is sucked up a tube and sprayed under pressure into the exhaust stream.

My apartment building doesn’t allow window units and the main A/C unit doesn’t cool around the corner into the bedroom. I had purchased one when my ex-wife developed breathing problems. Both houses weren’t A/C friendly.

 

Even if the inlet and outlet ports were right next to each other you would only be sucking in a small fraction of the exhaust air -- mixing with the outside air occurs very quickly. If they are separated by even a foot, there would be very little mixing. To make it even more so the exhaust duct can very easily be made to direct air away from the intake duct and the intake duct can similarly draw air from the direction opposite the exhaust duct -- then even if they are side by side the amount of recirc would be very small.

It would be very wrong not to vent the Condenser air to outside. The point of refrigeration is to collect heat in the space, then either passively or by forced air from the space being refrigerated. In this case driving the condensate heat outside and away from the room.

Sucking air from the outside would only be relevant if the air outside is lower than room air. The evaporator water dripping down will lead to the condensate via drip tube to the hot air and be evaporated. Humidity would be a problem, here in Utah it's not an issue, it's so dry here it's less expensive to run a swamp cooler, effective until July and August when temps rise as and humidity increases. Then it's miserable, a well insulated home work well year round with an air conditioner, although the evaporator freezes up during long runtimes. Again July to August, if liquid refrigerant makes it back to the compressor you will bend valves unless it's rotary, typically you won't see rotary in Air conditioners because you can't move enough volume quickly enough.

kv

 

I have one of those single hose units. It works incredibly well (even used it as a heater this past winter when the apartment building lost heat). No drain... condensate is sucked up a tube and sprayed under pressure into the exhaust stream.

My apartment building doesn’t allow window units and the main A/C unit doesn’t cool around the corner into the bedroom. I had purchased one when my ex-wife developed breathing problems. Both houses weren’t A/C friendly.

Oh, so it's a Heat pump also, I get it.

kv

 

Oh, so it's a Heat pump also, I get it.

kv

It’s not supposed to be a heat pump, but I accidentally found out that is worked as one.

I installed it at the beginning of the season. The second night, I woke up sweating. The room temp was 88°. So I reset the unit and turned the thermostat down. I woke up again and the room was 92°! So I shut it off and depended on the fans.

The next day, I was cleaning up the room and found that the exhaust pipe had fallen off the unit. I modified the adapter, bolted the tube to the adapter and duct taped the whole thing. Worked like a charm.

But this was early spring. In Boston, we have wild temperature swings in Spring and Fall. So one night the temperature dropped into the low 40s. Apartment management had shut off the heat and I was shivering. I got up, removed the exhaust pipe (stuffed the window exhaust with a T-shirt) and ran the unit. Warmed the room right up to a comfy level!