Sylvania 12,000 BTU Energy Star Portable 3 in 1 Air Conditioner Reviews

Customer Ratings:

I got tired of carrying window units around and from one floor to the next to store them off season. These do take up a bit of floor space but are MUCH easier to install seasonally. You basically run a 6 inch clothes-dryer type of flex hose to a supplied window kit. The install kit is all light-weight. The power cord also has a built in surge suppressor/ power breaker. So, you must plug it in on the lower outlet. The 12,000btu unit cools a 12.5x18 room very well. Just make sure you have adequate air flow into the room. The Ac can actually suck the insulation out of the window and draw in outside air if your house is too tight or your room is undersized for this unit. The box says it is good for rooms up to 500 sq ft. After trying it, I believe it. I was so pleased with the unit I wanted a second smaller one. We are looking for something around 8,000 btu in the same make and similar model. The remote displays all the settings of the ac, including your target room temp. The timer to start or stop is a great feature too. It's based on number of hours in half hour increments. Say it's 9am and I want it to start at 11am. You enter 2.0 using up/ down on the keypad. The other great thing about it is this: if it is really hot inside and cool and/ or humid outside this unit will run based upon the indoor temp. That is great if you have allergies or are bothered by humidity for any reason. Window models make you open the windows when it's cooler outside and open windows may not cool off the indoors enough! I love this unit. In hind site would I buy it again? You bet. Like I said, I'd like a second one.

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Bad design Negative air pressure; Poor window mount

I purchased the Sylvania SYL-12PE portable air conditioner. The single-hose exhaust system is just bad. If you need this type of unit, get a two-hose system (separate intake and exhaust hoses).

Pros:

1) can be used as an A/C unit or as a dehumidifier.

2) nice control panel

3) not too heavy

Cons:

Bad design. Can't cool without causing warm outside air to infiltrate.

The unit uses only one air hose, which exhausts warm air from the unit to the outside. This design is inherently problematic. By sucking the air out of a room, it causes negative air pressure in the room (and house) and causes the hot outside air to infiltrate into your house from anywhere possible: chimney flue, an open window in another part of the house, gaps in windows, etc. It's impossible to exhaust air out of a room without replacing it by an equal amount of air from somewhere else. So as this air conditioner is cooling one room, it is also causing warm/humid outside air to be sucked into your house through any place possible. At first, I thought this A/C was doing a nice job cooling my living room, but when I went into other parts of the house, they were heating up from all the infiltrated air. To use this A/C in a room, you really need to open a window in that same room. Obviously, the efficiency is poor.

Con:

Another problem is the window mounting. It was designed for a window without a sill. If you have a sill, then you have to add a fat foam strip under the window mount. It seems to be a last-minute "fix" for another bad design. When it rains, the foam strip acts like a sponge. So you have a big, fat, wet sponge sitting on your window sill. There is no flapper valve on the frame's exhaust opening. If there is a blowing rain, the rain will get into the exhaust hose (and possibly into the unit or your house). Also, the window mounting frame does not fit very well.

Summary:

The unit is nice, but the implementation is bad.

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