When I saw the gleaming silver air conditioner sitting on an elevated shelf as if to proclaim it's greatness, I must confess I was impressed. From the adjustable vents to the digital display it was like a vision from a space novel. I had to have one.

After reading the advertising blurbs of how it was portable and could be moved from one room to another and the ease of installation, I couldn't wait to plunk down my money and get this sleek contraption home. This seemed like the answer to my prayers. Here was an air conditionar that I could roll from room to room with little effort.

Well I bought the thing and transported it home. It took my wife and I to lug it up the stairs of our large vintage victorian house. I lifted and pulled while she pushed and complained. Perfect! Finally we arrived at the bedroom that I wanted to install this in, one of the guest bedrooms that didn't have a window unit. This was going to be great because we were having company stay with us for  the coming week and they would be using this very bedroom. This was going to give them the extra comfort of cool sleeping. Great.

After releasing the unit from the packaging I now noticed a huge flex hose that had not been attached to the display model. I started to have some apprehension as to just how easy this installation was going to be. I read the directions and discovered that this once wondrous marvel of a portable air conditioned wasn't all that portable. The monstrous flexible hose had to be vented out a window where it could exhale the hot air it was sucking out of the room. I have casement windows so this was the first challenge. In case you don't know what casement windows are they are the windows that open by pushing each side out. They have the individual panes of glass in a steel frame. There was no kit with this system that could easily adapt the monstrous hose to fit into one of the panes of my windows. In fact let's not even say easily fit, let's say it was literally impossible to logically fit this monstrous hose out my window. Excellent!

Well after some head scratching I came up with the bright idea of breaking the glass out of one pane and sticking the hose through. I made a cardboard template of the pane, cut the circle out for the hose, broke out the glass and taped the hose into the window pane. Genius! I had saved sthe day, or so I thought.

I turned on the unit and it wasn't as quiet as they advertised. In fact it was annoying if you were going to try and sleep. Well maybe the trade off for being cool was worth the noise. I set the digital thermostat at 67 degrees and shut the bedroom door. We waited for one hour and then opened the door expecting to shiver in our shoes. Wrong! It barely was any cooler than when we started the unit. We looked at each other in shock. Not only wasn't it cool but the unit had shut off. After reading the manual for troubleshooting I discovered the slide out tray that collected the water that was taken out of the air was full and had tripped a limit switch. I had to empty the tray and restart the unit. Ok I said to my wife let's only wait 15 minutes and see if the room has cooled even a few degrees. This time we didn't shut the door tight so we could hear if the unit stopped. Sure enough just at about 15 minutes the unit kicked off . The room was still hot and sthe water tray was again full. This was not going to work.

I read further in the manual and discovered you could run a small hose from the bottom of the water collection tray out the window along with the exhaust hose. Wonderful. This means I wouldn't have to worry about the unit shutting off  because the water tray was full before the room was cooled to the setting we chose -67 degrees. I ran the hose and restarted the unit, closed the door and went downstairs to watch TV.

Several hours passed and we went up to check on the temperature in our newly air conditioned room. What a surprise! It had barely cooled the room. Needless to say that was the final straw. I disconnected everything boxed it all back up and the next day we lugged this piece of modern day dissapointment back down the steps. I lifted and went down backwards and my wife pushed and complained. Deja Vu!

We returned the silver monster to Lowes where we were informed that ours was the third one returned this week! They cheerfully refunded our cash and we went to Sears where we purchased a good old upright window air conditioner that we have used in the other bedrooms. It was in the window and working within an hour and I carried it upstairs by myself while my wife complained. (just habit I guess!). It took a mere 10 minutes to notice cooler temperatures in  the room , and in a half hour you had ice forming on your nose.

I felt this information would be useful should you be considering one of those sleek looking portable air conditioners that has a huge flex hose that has to be run out a window , and while it is exhausting hot air from the room it is also radiating heat through the pipe back into the room. It just doesn't work as advertised. It barely makes a difference in temperature and belive me it's not the easy installation and easy move from room to room as they claim. Buyer be forewarned and beware. I found out the hard way.

I'm not going to name brands but if this well known famous brand performed in this manner I feel that they may all pretty much be from the same mold. 

I'm not trying to discourage you from looking into the portable air conditioners and if you are still dead set on purchasing one,  then make sure you do your homework before hand. Check out how the exhaust hose is vented out your window and how large the condesate holding tank is and if you can connect a hose that will let you direct the condesate out the window. as for me I'll stick to conventional air conditioners, either central or window units, and leave the portable ones for our "friends" in Iran!

God Bless America