Hey guys, anyone have one of these?
I just can't afford a split system/install at the moment. But also struggling with this heatwave up in regional Vic.
I've been researching and I know two hose portable ACs are the way to go. This is the only one I've really found.
thank you !
Posted by lamariposer
29 Comments
They are bloody noisy, and you need a way to vent the hot air. But they do work pretty well in a small area.
Had a fairly old one at my last house and it was an absolute life saver. Made my bedroom useable. They’re not particularly efficient, they’re loud and won’t do big spaces but it could save your sanity.
They can work, but they aren’t all that efficient nor are they quiet. Obviously you’d be better off with a properly installed one, but if you need to escape the heat they work.
Keep the piping to a minimum to maintain efficiency. If you can, have the unit in another room.
2.7kw should do a large room.
Honestly, kogan do a solid portal aircon for about half the price. Depending on the rooms you need cooled, they do a ripper job. Definitely noisy snd meed to hook output as exhaust
Those things are loud and every 3-4 hours you gotta empty the water from the bottom
If you are looking at a 1k portable one, would it be an option to get a proper split system installed?
I did mine a few years back and it was about 2k for a good brand one fully installed? Also if you own your place place the government also has some incentives under the VEU rebate scheme to replace gas heaters and such which may offset the cost.
I got a refrigerated TCL one when I didnt have AC, loud as hell but turned my bedroom into a freezer. Well worth it.
Edit: it was about $500, 3 years ago.
I think you’d only need a big boy like this if you wanted to cool a living area / larger space.
The inefficient single hose ones are sufficient for bedrooms.
I would only use a portable system if I had to, and then only if I could get one second hand for under $150 (pretty easy most of the time)
Otherwise, a window system is a better choice, even if you had to sit it indoors and build a shrowd around the “external” side.
(Some places don’t allow you to have anything coming off the wall or out the window to preserve the asthetics of the building)
These things are super loud. They make the small systems with the window kit sound silent in comparison.
These are more seen in commercial setups
I had a DeLonghi portable, cost about $1200, it was excellent. Did an amazing job at cooling my bedroom in my heritage building. Noisy, but not in a terrible way. Running it was cheaper than heating, or at least my winter power bill was much higher than my summer bill.
Pretty much all portables in Australia are inefficient and noisy. Avoid if you can. If you can’t put in a box style reverse cycle aircon, these vertical window ones work great as well (we have 2x 2.2kw versions for up/downstairs and they’ve worked very well). https://www.dicksmith.com.au/da/buy/kogan-smarterhometm-35kw-vertical-window-air-conditioner-kogan/
I used a $600 portable aircon for a few years, it’s good enough for a single room. Not exactly quiet, but you forget about the noise pretty quickly when you feel the cool air.
You can buy them at any electronics place, I got mine from Kogan. The brand doesn’t seem to be available any more though.
Split system is much superior of couse, and doesn’t need you to do tricky stuff with the windows (and no security issues with someone being able to remove the air-con window shield and gain access).
If you can afford the investment look at installing even a small split system. There may be rebates depending on why your place currently has and it would be cheaper to save up some more and look into that rather than dropping a grand on a dalek. Plus they also heat. But if renting a normal portable will likely do fine if you also follow the outback Australian rules of closing curtains and living like a mole person lol (which we do even with a split system). Fair warning too, we had a bunch of these at my work when the air con was down and they have a water tank to collect condensation that has to be changed ever couple of hours and when it’s full weighs 6.5kg. It was a literal pain to have to remove I from the bottom of the machine and lift it up into a trolley so we could go empty it
Hey. You can get an aircon around 2.5Kw effective cooling (runs around 700w) for about $799. Then the install should only be $3-400 so it may come out about $1-200 more than this unit but a) be quiet b) be more effective if you can seal off the room and close off areas to cool an area of around 20m2 c) add value to your joint and be useful for heating also as it is cheaper to run than gas in a lot of cases.
Looking right now:
[https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/westinghouse-c27kw-h35kw-reverse-cycle-split-system-wsd27hwa](https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/westinghouse-c27kw-h35kw-reverse-cycle-split-system-wsd27hwa)
And then I would think $3-400 is a fair price for install.
Installing a split system is the way to go. But I would have had to upgrade my switchboard to accommodate it, which is a lot more than adding a new rcd to the existing board.
So I bought a De’Longhi Pinguino Care4Me PAC EL110ERFWIFI from Amazon for $750.
Been very happy with it, you don’t need to drain this model, unlike a lot of others.
Noisy, yes, but not really that bad.
My room faces South, so I cooked in Summer up until buying one of these. Expensive, and loud, but very effective. I love being able to switch it on remotely, and coming home to a cooler room.
https://www.itvsn.com.au/product/073921
Just be forewarned of a key difference between a portable AC and a split system.
The portable AC unit needs to exhaust hot air, that means its pulling air in from the rest of the house, other rooms will get hotter as a result and you may need to leave your doors open to that room to allow air to enter.
Split systems recurculate the air in the room.
For us, running a portable AC unit was worse than nothing – it pulled hot air in from the rest of the house and the roof, the top floor got hotter and hotter, eventually the portable AC wasn’t powerful enough to keep up.
Double the capacity:
https://amzn.asia/d/97UXwrL
I had one of these but cheaper ones. They do work if you blow them at your desired area directly.
The vent to push out hot air gets HOT. So you need to make the vent as short as possible. The room in general will not be very cold as the cold air will be offset by the heater that is the vent lol. But the air it blows out is cold so the area where it’s pointing will be fine.
I’m an idiot.
That’s not really a 2 hose system: one of those hoses is where the cold air comes out.
It’s going to be just as inefficient as any of the 1 hose portable units and draw hot air into your house.
I read somewhere that portable systems with a separate intake hose and an exhaust hose aren’t legal to sell in Australia anymore. I haven’t been able to find one when I was looking.
Get a window box unit.
I don’t think that’s a dual hose A/C. One pipe is the cool air outlet, the other a single hot exhaust.
After using portables for a couple summers when our evap started to underperform, I’d suggest not to spend $1K on a portable. Even the residential ones are loud as hell, let alone this industrial thing. Venting the air is also a bigger issue than you think it will be.
Get one key room fitted with a split system at minimum. With the VEEC rebate that would be more than possible.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/168106490976
i just hate that they are trying to get rid pf ducted systems for like one or two splits. Like yeah more efficient but in terms of comfort…
I have that exact model, to use at a factory.
It’s very loud, and won’t cool a room, rather you point it at an area/person.
Super cold, great unit
Couldn’t you just tape a hose to the back of a bunnings el cheapo version?
We had one – it sounded like a plane taking off in the room