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I'm in NYC in a basement apartment and my old junky LG 10,000 unit was doing nada.. I don't know if it was broken or just junky it never got anything that cold.
Now really, 12,000 btu units are supposed to be for a small space.. 400 to 500 square feet.
As I said I am in a basement apartment and I was SWELTERING... dying!!!!!
I researched every portable air conditioner under the sun and was ready to go out and buy one but the ones in the local stores either blew out ho hum air or were not set up to try at all, and online with all of them I read a lot of people saying they didn't do much... or ho hum reviews... this was the only unit where people wrote really enthusiastic 4 or 5 star reviews. I also learned that you don't even want to MESS with unit that has no exhaust / or just a single exhaust vent. If you are going to get a portable A/C you WANT a dual vented one. One takes air in, the other sends hot air out. This is MUCH more efficient, cooler, and FASTER than no vent / single vent unit and you don't have to be emptying buckets of water either.
I'm an actor/director/editor so I have hot computers running too and there's nothing worse than going to an audition sweaty or having to edit a movie or video in 90 degree+ heat.
I decided this was the one to try but I couldn't find ANY in NYC! Can you believe that? At $490.00 amazon's price is slightly inflated but all other places that had it a little cheaper were out of stock or had ridiculous long shipping waits or high shipping charges.
When I saw this puppy in stock, I grabbed it, and with the free trial of amazon prime shipping I ordered it 2nd day, (which would have cost like $180 on this heavy beast! but I got it free) and low and behold it came the next day!! HALLELUJAH!!! Law of attraction works I tell you!
First off this is NOT a 12,000 btu uit it is 14,000 btu. 2nd it is HUGE, and fairly HEAVY, but it looks nice, like a droid from star wars and luckily it's on wheels, but when the ups guy came it looked like he was delivering a refrigerator.
Second and most importantly this thing blows REALLY cold air. Within a few minutes of turning it on I could feel the blast of air was very cold. I knew that my space is really more like 700 to 1000 sf so I set it on full blast and on 61 degrees. Within an hour it dropped from over 90 and disgustingly humid in here to a cool comfortable 69 degrees even with all my computers running. If I turn off all the computers it gets even colder faster.
CONS:
The only con is that the venting hoses (like a dryer exhaust hose) should have been a little longer. They are about. This won't be a problem for most people but if your window is high, or you have a weird tiny basement window that only opens sideways you will have to mount the dual vents vertically, and it didn't quite make it, so I had to put the unit a little higher on top a little foot stool, and I had to do some duct taping on the window to make sure it was air tight sealed. That;s not their fault though I have really weird tiny nyc basement windows.
Other than that I have no complaints and still give it 5 stars I'm very happy to be writing this in comfort rather than torture. NYC summer this year has been insane with temps hitting 105. This is an old house too and the power usage on this unit is only 10.5 amps so no blowing out the circuit breaker.
The build seems quality hopefully all is well and it will hold up performing as great as it is doing.
Also this unit is MUCH better/cooler than the newer Whynter arc-14s. Whatever they did with that unit they messed up... I was going to buy it in a store and it didn't feel so cool and the guy kept saying that that's because it was in a big space but I mean the breeze coming right out of the machine with my hand right next to it or standing right in front of it was NO where as cool as the arctic blast that shoots out of this arc-12sd machine.
I hope this review helps you out. If you have are looking for a portable AC unit I can't imagine one being better than this.
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We did a lot of research before choosing this Whynter "Eco-Friendly 12,000 BTU Dual hose Portable Air Conditioner". We have an older Victorian house that does not have central air that we had been cooling with standard in window units but, with the rough winters we get, we were getting tired of moving them in and out twice a year. This portable unit does a great job and more than meets my needs. Here are my observations:Pros -
+ Cooling Ability; this unit easily chills my 15' x 20' (300 square feet) family room
+ Compressor Noise; this is surprisingly quite, even at the highest setting
+ Size; not too intrusively large, about the size of the old upright radio we have it setting next to
+ Portable; unit is fairly heavy but it is on wheels (note that the window vent needs to move with the unit)
+ Remote Control; a handy addition with a digital display that lets you change the temperature, fan speed, and timer from across the room
+ Easy Setup; my son and I had this unboxed and running within 15 minutes of opening the box, only one Philips Head screwdriver required to attache the screws to the window vent mount
Cons -
Ugly Vent Hoses; while it can't be helped as they are needed, the white vent hoses (look like dryer vent hoses) are an eyesore when extended out and totally incongruous with any decor (we keep ours retracted as much as possible except when needing to aim the Air Conditioning output to a different room)
Misc -
*Fan Noise; this can move a lot of air and makes the expected amount of fan noise when on the highest settings
This portable unit was a good solution for my needs and we will likely be getting at least one additional unit in the near future for use our the second floor.
Highly Recommended!
CFH
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I did a lot of research, and called a bunch of local A/C shops before I bought this. They all recommended the dual hose feature they said I'd be "wasting my money" getting anything else pretty impressive, considering they sold both types and could have made money on me either way.It's amazing. Within 20 minutes our whole bedroom (20 x 16, or 320 sq ft) is crisp and cool, and if we leave the door open it cools the hallway and the bedroom across the hallway, too.
I recommend this completely, but a few cons you may want to know just in case they're deal-breakers (in no particular order):
1) It's not quiet. However, it's not ridiculously loud, either. I can sleep through it, and I'm usually not able to sleep with much white noise. If being cool is your #1 priority (as it was for us), you can deal with the noise.
2) It's not small. We call it our R2D2 (Star Wars), as it's about the same size. We have a tall California King, and it still stands a few inches taller than the bed. Again, worth it for the cooling capacity.
3) The window install kit is small. Isn't tall enough to fit our 4' window I had our handyman rig it up using other materials he had to get at a hardware store. Without this, you really can't install it in a window much bigger than 2 or 2.5'. And no, it cannot be used unless it's installed in a window (in case you were hoping to get around that).
Honestly, you won't regret this purchase if your main concern is beating the summer heat this is a lifesaver.
Honest reviews on Whynter 12,000 BTU Dual Hose Portable Air Conditioner, Frost White
I did a lot of research on a portable A/C unit to replace the one I've been using for the past 6 years, an 8,000 BTU Hyundai.I'll start off with two things I wish I had known before I purchased this:
1 the water drainage pipe clearance is way too low. There's only about 1-inch clearance. The instruction booklet said to use a "plate" to remove the water, I kid you not... a plate to pour water out. Try doing that, especially at 3am at night and you might as well just save yourself time by pouring the water out directly onto your carpet. Now I'm shopping for a condensation pump and water tube that'll cost approximately $45, which is ok but you may want to factor in this cost. By the way when the water is full, it completely shuts off. I'd prefer it would leave the fan on (what my 8,000 BTU Hyundai was able to do). I live in the SF Bay Area, so I don't consider this area to be humid, but it can collect a fair amount of water in a short time. This is particularly true if you set the temperature low enough that the unit doesn't go on fan mode for a couple of hours to air out the water through the vent. My old unit drains the water into a container, which is more preferable to me. Obviously this is my biggest gripe.
2 the temperature meter light can be super bright. Granted, I do have it close to my bed, but it's like having a night light on. I like complete darkness when I sleep, so I gerry rigged it by taping a piece of paper onto it. Not the most pleasing sight, but it works.
Things I like which many reviewers have already said, so I don't need to go into detail:
1 blows cold air
2 can be loud but, because you can adjust the fan speed, lowering the fan would make it quieter
3 compared to my old unit, this is much narrower and shorter, even though it has more power / BTU
4 not super heavy
All in all, I wouldn't say I regret the purchase. I'm definitely not going to go through the hassle of boxing this up to return it. I just wish I had known about these annoyances beforehand.
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I purchased this unit to alleviate the extreme heat inside of one of my rooms. This particular room housed the majority of my electronic equipment. This thing sure made a difference. After about a day of running it dropped the temperature about 20 degrees.The only downside that I would place on this would be the window adapter. It wasn't quite wide enough to completely seal my window (it missed the mark by about 4 inches). A simple fix of a piece of wood cut to size and some duct tape fixed it up nicely though.
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