Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill
By the way, a related question often comes up, and this is a good place to address it. Specifically, what about a portable roll-around air conditioner? Is this a good solution?
A portable unit is one that rides around on wheels, with one or two hoses that are pointed out a window during use. Besides price, what is the difference between a one-hose unit and a two-hose unit?
As discussed in the two posts above, any air conditioner needs a flow of air to remove heat from the compressor, and needs to blow that heated air outside. A two-hose air conditioner brings in outdoor air through one hose, and blows it back outdoors through the other. But a one-hose unit has no source of outside air, so it uses some of the previously-cooled indoor air to cool the compressor, and then blows it outside through the single hose. In other words, it works hard to cool the indoor air, then uses some of that cool air to cool the compressor, and blows it outside. What a waste!
You can guess which one works better, delivering the full BTU rating to the inside of the trailer. You can also guess which costs more. But in my mind, anyway, a two-hose unit is the only one to consider.
Bill
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I have found that hot air leaking from the exhaust hose, and the use of a non-insulated exhaust hose is far more detrimental to efficiency. I wrap our exhaust hose with some flexible silvered insulating mat material, and tape every joint. This makes the hose non-flexible, but I believe that makes the greatest improvement to efficiency on the portable units.
For those with the side mounted AC units, if we switch to a true in-wall unit that has no side vents, one could remodel the cabinet and square off the opening to make a little more space. Because they require a sleeve, the drip pan concept would have to be redesigned a little, but that shouldn't be too difficult.