Can you recommend a portable air-conditioner?

[Bread Crumbs]

My office is located at over 7,000 ft altitude. The old building it is in has no air-conditioning or ventilation. The windows cannot support air conditioners.

Even though it is rarely very warm here, the room with our servers is crazy hot. Our file server overheats and crashes some times in the summer.

How well to portable AC units work?

Can they just sit in a corner with no ventilation and function?

Can you recommend a good portable AC unit?

[Ken Sp.]

Portable ACs usually put out heat as a discharge

[haikuman]

A recent discussion *(:>*

Example ...

Re: Miliaria - Hot weather takes its toll, that does it, I'm air conditioner shopping
Posted by: Carm [PM] [Ignore this user]
Date: July 13, 2010 05:46PM

Ditto what Muffman said.
I got a portable pinguino from HD or Lowes over a year ago. Nice unit. No tech to come out to install. Quick and easy.

Joe

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,969175

[John B.]

I also have a pinguino in my office. I think it's on it's 4th or 5th cooling season. Only issue with it is that the squirrel cage fan it uses has become unstable and rubs against the housing, causing varying levels of squeaking sound noise. It's mostly cooling equipment in a mostly unattended office, so I haven't bothered with it too much, but at some point I'll look for a replacement fan. Installation, in my case, involved drilling two dryer vent holes into the wall (one intake, one outlet) and plugging the unit into the wall outlet.

[bruceko]

picked up a sharp at the local costco.
It is very quiet.
They don't seem to have the sharp at costco online

[onthedownlow]

I actually have these models in use in some server rooms and they work great. The condensation evaporates 99% of the time, so never have to worry about draining (especially if you don't have access to any type of drain/sink/etc. where you could hook it up to auto-drain).

You will have to vent the heat somewhere, but it is simple, especially if you have access to a window or a plenum ceiling in your office area. The heat exhaust shouldn't cause issues with HVAC elsewhere. I have mine venting 90 degrees straight up into a 15-20ft plenum (purchased some extra misting hose and vent hose to attach). The rooms these handle are much larger than their rated room size.

I have two of these: http://www.sylvane.com/user-reviews/amco...views.html

...and two of these: http://www.A14electronics.com/Amcor-Nano...14000e.htm

...links for reference, not necessarily the best price, although I have purchased several from Sylvane before and they are excellent with fast shipping and service.

[GeneL]

Costco had a Haier model on a special in their last coupon booklet. It was online purchase only. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and it's been the coldest Spring and Summer that I can remember, so I've hardly used it.

$299.99 after $70 OFF Haier 12,000 BTU Portable Room Air Conditioner Cools Up to 550 sq/ft - Item# 483843 Free Standard Shipping

The unit is really good looking and very compact for a 12000 BTU portable. Based on my impression, so far, I'd say it's a great portable air conditioner.



Haier CPN12XC9 12,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

[Yoyodyne ArtWorks]

Got a couple of Royal Sovereign portable air conditioners a couple of years ago at Costco, they were both incredibly bad. Extremely noisy and did a lousy job of cooling to boot. Returned both for a full refund, would NEVER buy that brand again.