Whynter Portable Air Conditioner 14 000 BTU with Dual Hose Dehumidifier Cooling Fan for 500 Sq Ft Rooms

I got this air conditioner yesterday and will give my review and tests on it now, first I already own a whynter 122 model which is 7000BTU DOE and 12000 BTU ashre. it has worked wonderfully for a year now. NOW to THIS modelarc 148ms. this arrived yesterday with the bottom of the box bent up, UPS is hard as hell on products they ship, a horrible carrier. HOWEVER NO damage was done to the unit itself. installation was easier than on my previous duel hose whynter. it took me 20 minutes to get it all set up. THEN I waited 4 hours for the freon to settle before turning it on as whynter suggests. I have this in a 28 X 16.5 foot living room . NOW the tests. First it cools like crazy!, in a room at a hot 84 degrees I got a outlet temp of 58 degrees which is 26 dregees below room temp which is VERY Good!. ( air condition pros state that a good/OK air conditioner outlet temp thats 15-20 degrees below room temp is good, Less than 14 degrees and something is wrong with the AC). it cooled my room down 1 degree in just 5 minutes!. . NEXT, power draw. this AC draws the rated 11.3 amps and 1300 watts on high with the AC going full blast. fan only is 77 watts. NOTE!, if you have this hooked up to a 15 AMP circuit I reccommend no other lights or applience be hooked on the circuit. for a 20 AMP circuit you can run some lights ot a TV on the same circuit. ( NOTE: Im not an electrician or a AC repairman, these are my suggestions from personal experience). NEXXT....sound level. this unit is loud. on high it generates 62DBA at 4 feet from the unit in a live room with NO carpet or curtins. on low it generated 59DBA at 4 feet. HOWEVER at 10 feet from the unit watching TV its not too loud but I do have to turn the volume up a bit. for sleeping this noise should be great for sleeping as its a whuiute noise type noise. in a room with carpet, drapes and lots of heavy furnature or a bed it will be quieter as these thing soak up the noise.. againm my room is "live" and soaks up very little sound. reliability?? I dont know as Ive only had it one day, but with proper care its expected to last 7-10 years. overall this was a GREAT buy at $387 that I paid!. especially for a 14000 BTU ashrea/10300BTU DOE unit. NOTE 2!!!!: do not worry about whether an AC is one or two hose!, the ONLY thing that matters is the BTU DOE rating, the BTU ASHREA rating us useless for portable AC's. Read more

UPS driver brought it upstairs. It as easy to set up. The vent tube is amazing! I let it sit unused for 24 hours, so the working fluid would settle. The plug has a button for reset, when pressed, it works. I plugged it into my Ecoflow power station Delta 2000, with solar panel in the window, and the heat pump works fine. It has a nice fan which make a pleasant breeze in the room, cool which cools the temp, heat which heats the temp, and the temp is easy to set. It uses about 1400 watts to work. I don't like the dehumidify, because it cools the air too cold, without me being able to limit it. Now the vent tube is a little tricky so here is my advice. I failed to use the little plastic screw to fasten the two panels of the window covering; I used a metal screw; but it worked. The foam insulation doesn't wrap around the edge of the window covering real well, so you might want to order some foam with a strong adhesive about three or four inches wide, and long enough to all sides of the window panel. Moreover, my bedroom is now wonderful, so much nicer, cool, warm, just right. I love the heat pump. It cost less than some purses you could have bought instead, but it's another example of Chinese expertise in design and manufacture. A big hug to the Chinese people. Read more

I don't usually write reviews, let alone one this detailed, but since this is a high ticket item, I figured I'd put in the review. Hopefully it helps someone else make their decision. To briefly summarize the review below up-front for those that don't want to read it: yes, so far, i recommend this machine. I did a LOT of homework before settling on this unit. This is not my first portable AC unit, so I'm really really picky about the one i did get based on past experience. I don't live on a ground floor, and hauling this thing up and (in the event of a return, down) the stairs is not fun. I wanted something that minimizes that hassle. I read a ton of reviews on so many different companies and machines it felt like i was never going to find the right one. Everybody had such mixed reviews. I spent months looking for the right replacement unit. If i'm going to drop north of $400, because of the cooling capacity i need, it needs to be a really good machine. I needed a unit that would cool most of my apartment, so at least 500sq feet. (it's a poorly insulated/vented NYC apartment in a pre-war building. There's only so much a properly sized unit could do at best, so I'm not expecting miracles.) I didn't want an energy hog, or a machine that sounded like a jet engine. I wanted a company with responsive and good customer service in case things break or the unit arrived damaged. (AC units take a beating in shipping, in my personal experience, so customer service is important) I didn't want a machine that i had to drain or drain frequently (and had hard-to-reach drain ports and a small tank, or worse, leaked). I didn't even want (or need) a machine with a heater. And I definitely didn't want a machine that died after a few months. There are a lot of horror stories out there, and a portable AC unit is not an item that's easy to pack up and return. And then i found this machine, which had glowing reviews, not just here, but a lot of other places, and consistently (not just the most recent reviews). Plus the deal for the unit with the heater was too good to pass up. I bought it. It even arrived a day faster than scheduled. In fairness, i've only had this unit up and running for a few days, however, it is doing really well. It arrived in packaging that was a little worse for wear around the base, and thankfully, the packaging took the brunt of the damage. The unit itself was fine once i unboxed it. It is pretty hefty and bulky, so make sure you have help if you need to get it up stairs. I let it sit for a few days after it arrived to let the coolant settle before turning it on (as you do with refrigerated units). The user manual recommends letting it sit for 4 hours, but I don't think that's enough. Usually 24-48 is standard to let everything settle before hooking it up and powering it on. It's very important to let it sit though, or you will have problems with any AC unit if you turn it on right away without letting the coolant settle. It won't cool and it could damage the motor and internal mechanisms. I feel like that's usually the issue when i read reviews of units not cooling (or not cooling enough, if room size/cooling capacity wasn't the problem) Thankfully, there's no rush because it's winter, but I did want to catch the 60 degree day to just test how it would cool. The only reason I'm giving it four stars instead of 5 was that i had to take a hacksaw to the plastic window extension piece and cut several inches off of it to make it fit, otherwise i wouldn't have been able to get the exhaust tube in because of the overlap. And, also, there's no grated cover for the exhaust hose at the piece, so unless you put your own netting, things can get into the open exhaust hose. (or if there is a grate, it didn't come with the machine) It rolls pretty easily, and is relatively quiet. It is, after all, an AC unit, so it will be fairly audible, even at low speed. That being said, it's quieter than previous units I've owned. Now, because I've only had it for less than a week, I don't know how it does on power consumption, or, obviously long term. I am eager to see how it does in the summer. All i can say is that it keeps the notorious NYC radiator heat at bay really well, for now. It noticeably cooled my living room on that 60 degree day in less than 20 minutes after i turned it on. And I did not wake up in the middle of the night in my own sweat from the radiator heat in my bedroom (sorry, tmi). Those are both wins in my book. Fingers crossed this performance keeps up, because if it does, this is a solid machine. Read more