WhynterPortable Air Conditioner 14,000 BTU & Heater with Dual Hose Dehumidifier & Cooling Fan for 500 Sq Ft Rooms, Includes AC Unit Window Kit, ARC-14SH (9,200 SACC)

In late July we moved from long term housesitting with central air to a house that did not. Now this new place had a lot of space, was on a larger plot of land, and had many advantages.It was an older home, built in the 1940s originally and added on since, making it a ranch style home, with a living area at one end, and a nice office at the other. The office used to be an enclosed porch that they, a long while back, enclosed some more, but not at all what would be standard workmanship for today. The windows are almost all louvered in the house. There are high ceiling throughout, in every room but the office.It's a great house, just not a great house in hot weather because there's just no good way of cooling this place down. We're not the owners so can't do the kind of insulation additions that would be needed. There was a smaller window air conditioner in the bedroom, but that was it.Moving in late July meant, of course, that we were moving at the beginning of the hottest time of year.I had a dissertation to finish writing before September. I needed to work in the office. I got this.Well, set up was extremely easy. Got all the tape and packaging off, plugged in the hoses, put the vent panel over the window. It didn't fit all that well, but of course windows are all made differently so making it fit for a particular window is to be expected. When I put it in, it was already hot, so I used a liberal amount of duct tape (white) to seal it in on both sides.Turned it on. It started working. Pumped out a lot of cold air after a few minutes. Was wonderful to stand in front of.The trouble was that this room was a hotbox. The relatively low ceilings and all day direct sun made it crazy hot. There's no insulation. The louvered windows leak air like sieves. The Whynter shoots the air straight up, to cool the room not a particular spot. But, the room cooling effect wasn't working--it was the room not the Whynter. The room was definitely cooler with the unit on than off, even on 100+ degree days. But it only got about 10 degrees colder, and when it's crazy hot outside, the room is trying to heat up to a fair bit more than the outside temp, so the Whynter had a lot of work to do, and it wasn't able to pull it off.I got a Model 50 Premium Unbreakable Air Deflector, got it taped on (packing tape works and is mostly invisible), and got the air pointed right at me. Made all the difference. I could happily keep working no matter how hot it got outside or in the rest of the room.Found the window unit in the bedroom not cooling that room. It just wasn't strong enough for the rooms lack of insulation and high sloped roof. The room was, however, sealed well, so I put this Whytner in there, so that my wife and baby could have cool days while I was off to work.That's where this really proved itself. It kept the room in the upper 70s and low 80s even though it was about 100 degrees outside (and 104 in our living room. So much stronger and more powerful in every way.I live in California where the heat tends to be dry, so I've never had to mess around with the water pan. And while other reviews suggest that the heater isn't worth it, it really never gets all that cold here in California, so this is the perfect kind of heater for here, strong enough to heat up a room when the morning temps can get into the 40s or 50s (only very occasionally dipping down into the 30s).I'm exceedingly pleased by this, by it's versatility, ease of use, and portability. Moving it from one room to another is a snap (though I'm a big, strongish guy so picking it up in a few spots is easy for me).My one complaint is that the manufacturer attachments are really, surprisingly expensive. Much cheaper to build and fashion to size using basic materials and tools.

I've had three previous portable ACs. This Whynter is the best so far!For a start, it has dual hoses. That may initially seem to fall somewhere on the scale between "so what" and "what a pain", but you actually WANT dual hoses. Here's why:Normal air conditioners are installed with part of the unit inside (think of it as 'the cold part') and part of the unit outside (or 'the hot part'). The 'hot part' contains the compressor -- similar to the engine of a car. It provides the power for the machine but, in so doing, generates a lot of heat that has to be removed somehow. The 'hot part' is cooled by the movement of air. It is said to 'breathe' because it takes in cooler air and expels warmer air.When you have a single hose portable unit, that hose is only used for 'exhaling' the hot air. That means that the 'inhaled' air to cool the mechanics will have to come from your room. So the air that you're paying to cool is being used to, in turn, cool the motor and then being 'exhaled' out that single hose in the window. Because it is constantly drawing air from the room and expelling it via the hose, a single-hose unit will create a vacuum in the room you're trying to cool. This means that doors won't really want to close, much of the air-conditioned air is being expelled and your home will begin to draw in the hot air from outside in order to equalize the interior air pressure.Dual-hose units, however, have one hose dedicated to each part of the 'breathing' cycle - one hose for 'inhale' and one for 'exhale'. That means that your air-conditioned air stays put right in the room you're trying to cool, and that's a Good Thing(tm). The result for me is that -- while I live in a top floor, full-sun-all-day apartment in a breezeless section of Los Angeles (a.k.a. "a Broiler") -- my bedroom now stays shockingly cold and I wind up turning this unit off in the middle of the night to avoid frost bite. Other (single hose) units had to run 24x7 through the warmer months just to keep the room livable. Comfortable was never an option.What's more, the Whynter is a much quieter machine than I've had before. You have to understand that there is no such thing as a "quiet" portable AC (because the 'hot part' is in your personal space). So if you're trying to maintain library silence, this will not work for you. It is louder than a fan but still MUCH quieter than any previous portables I've owned.I also like that Whynter eschewed silly and unnecessary moving parts (motorized louvers, for example). Those things always broke within weeks of heavy use anyway and eventually caused rattling annoyance as I waited for the previous machines to die.All air conditioners create condensation -- moisture that collects from the humidity in the air on the cooled internal parts of the machine. It's why you always see window air conditioners dripping -- they're expelling condensate. This unit collects that condensation in an internal tank, heats it up and evaporates it out the 'exhale' hose so that -- in all but the most humid conditions -- you never have to empty the bucket. That is also a Good Thing(tm); however, all units will need to be drained at some point if you use them long enough and in a wide enough variety of weather patterns. Most portable ACs seem to have considered placement of the drain plug in an "Oh crap! We forgot the drain plug!" kind of way. But the Whynter has the drain situated conveniently on the back of the unit, and high enough off of the ground that you don't wind up having to dig into the carpet to unscrew it. My previous unit's drain plug was mounted so low that when placed on carpet it became entirely inaccessible. That won't be a problem with the Whynter.Whynter's remote control is perhaps the best I've seen for a portable AC. It has its own little LCD display to show you the current state of the machine that stays wirelessly in sync with what is happening at the unit. So if you use the unit to turn the temp to 75F, for example, the remote will also show a target temp of 75F. That's a neat feature that means you can lay in bed, grab the remote and know how you want to adjust it based on its current state. This is yet another Good Thing(tm). But it could be a bit better. If the LCD glowed at night when you press a button so you can read it without turning on a light, that would be helpful. It would also be nicer if the keys had a more distinctive feel that would allow you to grab it in a dark room, find the button you want by touch and adjust the unit quickly. As it is, you have to have some external light source to be able to see what the remote is telling you.I've also previously had portable ACs that were clearly channeling Vegas when they designed their onboard LCD displays. Nobody wants an "All Singing! All Dancing!" animated LCD mere feet from where they're trying to sleep. Fortunately, the Whynter's display is just a placid blue with simple to read black characters. Much less obtrusive but, again, it isn't perfect. For a start, the LCD is positioned on the front of the unit instead of on the top. If you happen to be no more than 24" tall then it is right at eye level. But if you're taller than that you'll need to take a knee or a seat to see the LCD. A position on top of the unit would have been a much better design choice. Also, the LCD is backlit whenever the unit is running and that isn't something you can change. You're just going to have a blue light in the room when the unit is on, full stop. And when the unit is turned off but you still need the display (like when you're setting the timer function to turn the unit on later in the day), the LCD doesn't light up so it is difficult to impossible to read without a flashlight. My preference would be that the LCD only lights up when you press a button, then turns off after a few seconds so you can have a dark AND cool room. My quick hack solution was to affix a piece of cloth that hangs down over the display, but that disables the remote control (because the receiver is somewhere in/around that display). So I can either have a dark room or a remote controllable AC. That is sub-optimal.On balance, I still give this a 5-star review because it just does what you want it to do -- cool the room -- and it does it very well. Its comparative quiet operation, dual hose configuration and exceptional cooling prowess far outweigh the little design quibbles I have with the unit. Especially when you consider that the next step up in machine design/quality/power (Movencool) is six times the price of this unit! Plus the Amazon Prime shipping? It's a no brainer. This is the unit you want.