I cannot get a window unit due to my window size, and this unit came with a window kit that fit my windows. It worked absolutely perfect for 2 months. Then, on a particularly hot day, the bucket filled up with water and the unit shut off. I drained all the water, which is an absolute pain in the rear to do due to the drain being less than half an inch off the floor. The unit leaks water like a faucet ever since, all over the floor. There is really no effective way to use it anymore. I ordered a different brand that doesn't have water leakage issues. I should have listened to all the reviews I read. I practically paid several hundred dollars for a few months use. What a waste. The unit cools great, but what good is that with water all over your carpet? Stay away from this product.
UPDATE: The unit only leaks when moved. If the water reservoir fills up, and must be drained, the unit must be moved to do so because the drain plug is literally right on the floor and there is no pan or container you can get under it. The reservoir will fill eventually, the unit will have to be drained, will have to be moved, will leak. Once all the water leaks out that is going to leak the unit works great until its time to drain again. Like I said, it took 2 months before I had to drain, but this process was a major PIA. I would avoid this unit, but I still gave in another star because it does not leak except during the drainage process.
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The best air conditioners are large central units that connect to a whole building HVAC. Since you're reading this review, it's likely that a central unit isn't a possibility for you like it wasn't for me. If you can put in a window unit, that is your next best bet but if that is not practical, you've got to go portable. You could get a nice fan or an air cooler but that's like taking the bus instead of driving. It's really not the same.
I have two portable air conditioners and both are made by Soleus. This is one of them and the other one is a 14,000 BTU unit. This one cools a 166 sq ft room that only needs to be cooled ten to fifteen degrees and it's more than powerful enough for that. It can bring the temperature down in fifteen minutes or so.
Portable air conditioners, until fans, need to have an unsightly and awkward tube connected to the window. These tubes are inevitable flimsy and don't fit well. They seem unacceptable unless the only alternate solution is to suffer in the heat and then suddenly they don't seem bad.
Soleus is perhaps the best portable air conditioner manufacturer. I haven't ever had a non-Soleus unit but I've heard horror stories about others. I've heard bad things about these too but I haven't had anything bad happen.
This is probably the smallest and cheapest good unit on the market so if 8000 BTU is enough for you, this is an excellent bet.
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. . . if you're mindful of one limitation: it condenses lots of moisture into a limited capacity container, and will need to be emptied or drained. It's built low to the ground, so I put it up on a little platform and attached the short included plastic hose to the drain port and put a container under it to catch the "drip" (which when it is very hot and humid is really a "stream"!). Recognizing that limitation (discussed in previous reviews), I've avoided any problems and have been quite pleased with the product. It cools well and in my limited basement space where it is used, it does fine.
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This works well for the particular conditions in which we're using it. We're happy with it. We live in northern California, where hot weather is usually also dry, and evenings are cooler. We put this in a bedroom that gets very hot during the day and doesn't cool down quickly enough at night. Instead of trying to fit the "window kit" into our old-fashioned window, we just leave the window slightly open with the end of the vent hose sticking out while the unit is running. We run it at bedtime and it cools the room down nicely. I gave it only four stars instead of five because of a couple of design flaws: (1) Though I don't expect that we'll have to deal with emptying the condensation tank much, if at all, it's true that the opening is awfully close to the floor, and I can see that in a more humid environment, where it would need emptying more often, it would be pretty awkward. I don't see why the designers couldn't have put the hole a little higher up so that you could actually get a pan or bowl under it. (2) The instructions said to keep the vent hose as straight as possible, but they put the vent hole at the bottom of the unit too. Most people don't have their windows at floor level, and putting this thing on a table or something would also be awkward, since it's so big and heavy (90 pounds, I think). That said, it works just fine for us sitting on the floor with a 90-degree bend in the hose, so I guess that's not such a big deal.
UPDATE: We've had it for almost a year now and are still satisfied with it. It gets the room nice and cool very quickly, and we have never yet had to empty the condensation tank. So that's not a big problem in a dry climate.
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We live in a midcentury apartment building mid 20th century, that is. The building's central air unit has reliably failed during each heat wave we've lived through since moving in. This year, I'd had enough. We ordered the Soleus based on a couple of days of Internet research, and we bought from Amazon for ease of returns if that became necessary. The unit arrived short one panel for the screen-door vent adaptor. We emailed the manufacturerer and they promptly sent not one but two additional panels.
Then we had a few weeks when the building's main A/C was working. But sure enough, another heat wave and the central unit failed. This morning it was 78 degrees in the coolest room of our apartment. We rolled out the Soleus, assembled the vent panel and duct, and turned it on. Fifteen minutes later the room was 75 degrees.
This A/C unit is a bit noisy, but not really worse than the central A/C's fan unit in our apartment. We have the Soleus hooked up in the living room and venting out that patio door. A fan will push the cool air back to us in the bedroom.
78 degrees probably doesn't sound too bad, but when you are 46 and hormonally imbalanced, it's too hot for comfortable sleep. I consider the Soleus a good investment and would add that I was very happy with the fast and courteous handling of our missing-parts request to the manufacturer.
