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This has been a truly terrible summer in New York City. Most of July was boiling hot and near-tropical humid. My ancient window air conditioner had been confiscated by my landlord, at the request of the NYC fire department, during the winter, because the bedroom window where it was located was on a fire escape. I didn't think much about it at the time because, after all, it was WINTER. But then, the blazing heat rolled around, and I was a little leery about purchasing a portable air conditioner -the only kind that wouldn't violate the nothing-in-windows-on-a-fire-escape rule -for several reasons. First, I had heard that they were less efficient than window models. Because of this, I had no realistic idea of how many BTU's I would need to cool my 10 X 12 foot bedroom. Additionally, I was nervous about how a standing air conditioner would look in my room, and how much space it would take up. Finally, after broiling in the city for several weeks, checking out the big box stores' offerings, and doing a ton of research, I settled on the Whynter ARC 10WB portable. It has been an absolute blessing. It has tamed the disgustingness of a New York City summer, and allowed me to sleep normally again. It has a variety of modes in which it can be used, including standard AC operation, fan mode, and dehumidifier mode. The AC mode is still going fairly regularly, because the wet heat has continued pretty steadily, even into the end of August. But on the rare days when it lets up for a while, the fan is more than sufficient to keep me cool. The unit is neatly designed, mostly white, and blends in nicely with my white walls. Oddly enough, it takes up substantially less space than the two standing fans I had been using to beat the heat before the Whynter arrived. The unit moves easily on its wheels; and I anticipate that there will be no problem switching it to another room if that should ever be desirable. (There was, however, an insufficient amount of foam padding included in the package for anything more than one average-size window. When I inquired about this at Whynter, they suggested that I could probably find more at a local hardware store. This does seem a tad like copping out on an item of negligible cost.)
Two other small problems: The unit is loud in its operation. But I was prepared for that, since I had learned from my prior research that portable models tend to be loud. I've gotten used to the sound, but it did take a bit of getting used to.
Also, the operating manual is absolutely terribly written, filled with contradictions, and difficult to follow if, like me, you're not born with a gift for assembling things. It took a number of calls and e-mails to Whynter to get everything straightened out. Whynter, however, was consistently helpful.
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Gotta say, this item is awesome. Freezes any room in a matter of minutes. It is heavy though, which is because of the BTU rating, but worth it. The evaporator took care of all condensation, so no tank to drain which is also a plus.Best Deals on Whynter ARC-10WB 10,000 Btu Portable Air Conditioner
We needed a small air condition unit for a small space that the central house a/c didn't sufficiently cool. We comparison shopped and decided on the Whynter ARC-10WB and it works beyond expectations. We like the fact that it doesn't have a drip pan that needs monitoring/emptying. Overall, we are extremely pleased with this unit.Honest reviews on Whynter ARC-10WB 10,000 Btu Portable Air Conditioner
This was one of the few portable indoor units that I could find that had mostly good reviews...so I decided to pay a little extra for a 10k btu unit and grab it. For the year or so I've had it, I've been very happy with it. It blows cold air fast, cools my room down well (12'x12'), and I haven't even had to empty anything. I've noticed the fan sputter a bit lately, but it seemed to be temporary and of no real consequence. I'm not sure I could recommend it for a much bigger room though. It would work great if it was blowing on you, but for something like living rooms it might have to run hard for long periods of time.It is loud, but, show me an AC that isn't. The sound mostly goes away when I wear headphones or turn up my speakers though, so meh!
Actually I LOVE sleeping to the AC sound. It soothes me heheh. If you must have it totally quiet while you sleep, just get a fan or something and WD-40 it to your heart's content. I'd MUCH rather have the noise than the Texas heat while I snooze!
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I saw in the reviews how some received theirs damaged and mentioned something about how the packaging could have been better. Ours came this afternoon, and the box had a sticker that said TEAM LIFT and my husband is 74 with many health problems. We knew it was going to be heavy and although we did not see the UPS guy bring it up to the porch, we knew it would be difficult to get it in the house. Fortunately the neighbor next door was putting a new roof on the house his daughter was living in while she completed her schooling at a near by college, and he offered to get it in the house with a helper he had with him. My husband assured him we did not need any more help and he went on his way. The first thing my husband did was cut with a box cutter type knife around the bottom of the box, then I lifted that off and under it was another corrugated box that had strapping around it. We thought the second box would need to be cut as well, but once the straps were cut the second box was already cut and I just lifted that one off. There was no damage to any of the components only the Styrofoam was slightly cracked that held the remote, booklet and vent pipe. Like my husband said it very well could have been cracked in packing so I would not count that as damage. This is the second one we bought this year and have not tried this one yet, but once we do I will come back and update the performance. I just wanted to say how pleased we were with the packing of the product. Ours was sold by AMAZON LLC, so I don't know it is because of Amazon or the manufacturer Whynter, but it was well packaged. We are going to install ours with through the wall installation so it will be a little while before I come back to review the product.One other thing about the AC is that the connection for the vent hose is 5 inches at the back of the machine, but they provide a reducer that actually takes that 5 inch to 6 inches for the vent hose. We thought it was going to be 5 inch all the way and we were looking before we got it to see where we could by a 5 inch through the wall vent, but I wasn't having a lot of luck, I did find some but the prices and or shipping really brought the price up, some were charging $15 for the shipping on an item that was already over $20. But, once we got the unit we found out that the only part that is 5 inches is the connection point on the AC, that as I said above has a connector that brings it to 6 inches, and the 6 inch vents are easy to find, we bought one for our first Portable AC at our Home Depot less than a mile from home, and it was only $18.72, so that is what we will do with this. My husband did have to buy a 6 inch hole cutter which he got at HD I don't remember the price but they have two and you don't need the super strong one if you only need to use it a couple of times. It makes a really nice installation to direct vent it out the wall, and also making a hole to drain the moisture out the back wall. We bought the 5/8 hose, 10 feet of it, and that is more than enough to do 2 AC's.
UPDATE: I posted the pictures of the through the wall installation we did. This is IMPORTANT, we shut off the power to be sure there were no wires in the area my husband was going to drill the hole. Our wires turned out to be above the second outlet that shows in the pictures so we knew it was safe for him to drill the hole, then we turned the power back on. The drain is located at what looks like a high point, but at the time I ordered the unit from Amazon I wrote to Whynter and asked about putting in a drain to the outside, I was told there were two drainage points on the unit and to use the upper drain since it is the first in line, and it made it easy for my husband to put that hole through the wall. Our other unit he drilled a hole through the laminate in the bedroom floor and out the basement to get the downward flow. On this one we did not have to use the clamps shown in my pictures the hose just slid over the drain hole on the unit, we did buy 10 feet of 5/8 by 1/2 inch drain hose from Home Depot for this purpose. For the 6 inch vent pipe he cut off about half of it to allow it to be compressed and make the installation neat to the wall. We will have to find a finish for it when we store it for the winter, and we also want to seal off the opening since there is a gap that allows some of the heat you are taking out of the house back in through that gap that may be less than half an inch on part of the vent opening in the wall. I saw where one person put up a YouTube video for their installation, they used an insulation tape, but I hope we come up with something a little neater. Still working on that.
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