expired Posted by omelette_du_fromage • May 21, 2022
May 21, 2022 7:02 PM
Item 1 of 7
Item 1 of 7
expired Posted by omelette_du_fromage • May 21, 2022
May 21, 2022 7:02 PM
BJs Wholesale Members: Midea Duo 12000-BTU Inverter Portable Air Conditioner
+ S&H$450
$500
10% offBJs Wholesale
Visit BJs WholesaleGood Deal
Bad Deal
Save
Share
Leave a Comment
Top Comments
2 they don't require you to remove a window screen(so less chance of bugs getting in)
3. Less chance potentially damage the storm window frame, sill, casement or the window itself.
4.You don't need to have an exterior support on the outside of the window to hold up the weight of the window AC.
5. Portable ACs are far more secure for your home because you can easily take the entire window mounting kit out of your window and then lock the window at any time, in just a few seconds. Thieves love, I mean looove window AC units because they can just wait until they see the homeowner leave and then go up and push the AC unit into the interior of the house and have a completely clear and open window to access your home. I've heard of situations where someone has just gone up to a window AC unit, lifted the window up and pulled it right out of the window and ran with the entire air conditioner, broken cord and all. 😅
6. They don't make your house look like crap
7. They usually have wheels and handles, so you can actually move them around your house if you need to, or relocate and install into another room in just a minute or two. That's where the portable part comes in.
The downsides are
1. that they can be loud,(although inverter units like this are usually much quieter because they self-regulate the speed of the compressor, so they often don't need to run at 100% like many AC units do all the time. This is why inverter AC units are more efficient)
2. They are less efficient overall than window AC units, this is largely because they have much greater heat emission through convection, conduction and even infrared from the portable AC unit that is inside your house, so all that heat gets dissipated into the interior of your home. The AC pulls that heat out when it cools the air, but it reduces the efficiency. With a window AC unit almost the entirety of the unit is out side, so the majority of that heat is dissipated outdoors rather than in your home.
3. they may need to have their water tank drained regularly in very humid locations,
4. take up floor space,
5. Usually cost more than a window unit for the same btu
just like window units, they have their own electrical requirements. On that last item, you have to consider any air conditioning unit's electrical draw in the same way that you would a space heater. You need to make sure that your wiring is up to the job and that you don't overload the total amperage / power draw for the entire circuit in the room. You can't (physically can, but REALLY shouldn't) use an extension cord on an air conditioner unit. You will want to electrically isolate any electronics that are plugged into the same circuit to prevent damage from the voltage spikes(the milliseconds where the voltage in the circuit is balancing and causing what most people are familiar with as slight "brownouts" because of how it made incandescent bulbs temporarily dim) when the air conditioner turns on and off. A good UPS with built-in voltage regulation should be able to protect your electronics. At the very least get a solid state voltage regulator. Otherwise it is just a matter of time until the cumulative damage eventually breaks your electronics. 😕
If you just need temporary cooling and want to be able to move the air conditioner around, a dual hose/hose-in-hose portable like this is the way to go. If you have central air and it still isn't getting the job done, before buying any AC unit, you should contact a professional heating and cooling company and have them come and take a look at your furnace and air conditioning unit. A lot of times low performance can be fixed by routine maintenance, finding and sealing leaks in the air ducts, or putting an in-line blower into an air vent to increase air pressure and volume to distant rooms to get the air where it needs to be.
You might also want to look at weatherizing your home to reduce leaks and gaps that are letting in hot humid/cold air. Improving Insulation is an investment that almost always sees a dramatic return in just a few years. If you improve the insulation in your home and reduce your electrical and heating bills you can recoup the cost of the insulation in just a couple years; it pays for itself in lower bills. After that, everything you save is just money that stays in your pocket. That really is the best deal, not needing to spend your money in the first place.
Good luck! 👍
My current favorite would be the CyberPower Model CST1500S (url below)
It has a lot of good features in addition to the UPS with event detection and isolation. surge suppression, automatic voltage regulation, data port protection for coax (cable) and RJ45(computer networking cables), USB to PC connectivity to shut down your PC automatically, a decent battery and even a couple handy USB ports on front so that you could just use to charge a phone if that's all you needed. Those are all great features, and should be considered pretty much standard at this point, but the thing that really puts this one above a lot of the other models is the fact that the built-in dc to AC inverter, the part that provides electricity when the power goes out, produces a true sine wave form AC. This means that the electricity provided when you have no incoming utility power is almost exactly the same quality as utility power.
(Tldr; a true sine wave inverter makes cleaner power that works with everything, and that is good.)
This is important if you have any delicate or precision electronics that are sensitive to irregular power sources. I won't get into all that in detail, but one of the most common issues were that causes a problem is with devices that cannot detect or process power from an inverter that has a square sine or even a step stimulated sine wave. Laptops are a great example of that, there are many laptop chargers that will not function on a square sine wave power. Usually people find that out when they're trying to charge a laptop from a power inverter in their car. In short, some devices see square/stepped sine wave generator power as 'dirty' and will not work.
Costco had it on sale for $149 about 2 months ago. I bought two of them and wish I had bought more to swap out my 8 older APC brand UPC units for all of the "around the house" electronic areas.
http://www.costco.com/cyberpower-...27623.html
Costco seems to have good sales on UPS's every couple months, you can search here on sd for "Costco ups" to see some of the sales. If you ever have a choice between UPS' at the same price or even a little bit more, get a full sine wave generated UPS.
💡That's all great, but if you don't have the cash and aren't willing / able to wait for a sale, there are also some alternatives.
The first thing I'd recommend that you do is to take a look and see if all the outlets in your specific room are on the same circuit. The easiest way to check that is to turn off all of your other equipment, turn off the breaker to the room and use an non contact electrical voltage detector that you can put up next to an outlet to see whether it is on or not. You can get them at any hardware store or online for under $10. If the breaker is off but not all of the outlets are dead, that means you have more than one circuit feeding into the room, so no problem, just plug your electronics into the other circuit that isn't shared with the outlet you're going to be plugging the A/C into. If you don't have a voltage detector, you can still easily check if you plug a lamp or a fan or something that is obviously visually 'on' into each outlet, turn off the breaker and then see if anything is still on afterwards. Worth a shot.
Another thing you could do if you really had to is to run an extension cord in from another room that is on another circuit and power your electronics through that. You would have a significantly reduced risk of damage from a brownout event from the A/C turning on and off. It's not ideal because you don't want to have an extension cord going down a hallway or underneath the door, but it's something you could do right away to give your electronics a degree of isolation. You don't want to run a portable AC or heater on an extension cord, ever.
IMO you should have a good UPS or two to protect your equipment regardless because a power bump from the Air conditioner isn't by far the only thing that can cause electrical damage to your gear. It sounds like you've got a few thousand dollars worth of electronics there, and imo $150 is a very very low price to provide not only protection but also additional utility in eventuality of power issues.
One of the simplest and smartest things you can do, even if you have a UPS, great house wiring, whole house and point of use surge suppressors, voltage regulators, af+gfci breakers all backed up to a full isolation transformers (I know, that's a lot of electrician nerd talk) is to simply unplug something when you aren't using it. 🤔 Yeah, really. Seems pretty straightforward, right? But most people never really think about it. Nobody wants to actually plug and unplug stuff, so to make life a lot easier you're probably going to want to get an individually switchable power strip, something like this
CRST 6 Outlet Heavy Duty Power Strips with Individual Switches, 15AMP/1875W Surge Protectors Metal Power Strip with Circuit Breaker(1200 J), 6 FT Extension Cord 14AWG
smile.amazon.com/dp/B097JH3W3W/
Shop around; you can find similar individually switched power strips with or without surge suppression for as low as $8-9 bucks. Flip a switch and your downline electronics are isolated from your home wiring, so lightning, power bumps, brownouts, and whatever else won't ever be able to reach your device to even potentially cause damage. You will also be able to get rid of all vampire power drain on any of those devices, and that by itself should pay for the power strip over the years.
Good luck. 👍
122 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
https://usermanual.wiki/m/f6f9ba2..._optim.pdf [usermanual.wiki]
Basically, you build an adapter by snapping three pieces together and then snap that onto the hose and the window panel. The snaps are not particularly secure and do not like having weight applied. If you decide to get it, I would put it all together and then put it in the window vs trying to snap it into the window panel when it is in place. Also, many other brands allow you build a very rigid window panel. This one uses plastic stops to extend the panel so it is not particularly rigid. You need to be more deliberate when you put it into your window.
All that said, this works very well. It is quiet and cools the room. This installation process just makes it hard to recommend for slider windows.
If you are ok with single hose, and don't need something today, Costco had an LG for $400 a few weeks ago.
https://slickdeals.net/f/15776902-lg-10k-btu-doe-sacc-dual-inverter-smart-portable-air-conditioner-model-lp1022fvsm-399-97?a
Maybe wait for that to come around again.
Does the LG unit have better and more rigid panel for slider window for you to recommend it over the Midea? Despite that it's single hose vs dual?
Last time the LG went on sale it went out of stock so I might just buy and price match later
Does the LG unit have better and more rigid panel for slider window for you to recommend it over the Midea? Despite that it's single hose vs dual?
Last time the LG went on sale it went out of stock so I might just buy and price match later
The LG uses metal screws to connect the different panels so it is much more secure than the plastic stops the Midea uses. Here is their video
:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS8i-IYP6Q
The LG uses metal screws to connect the different panels so it is much more secure than the plastic stops the Midea uses. Here is their video
:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agS8i-IYP6Q
Or a super-small window, the add-on bedroom upstairs at my mom's house won't take a window A/C, I had to cut the window pieces to make the flat parts for the hose fit.
Other than that, it seems like a good deal on an efficient portable AC.
I've not seen another inverter+dual-hose come up at this price
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
also hows the noise?
duh, because you dont have mounting hassle and you can move it around, store it away etc if you want. You arent committing to anything. I mean the advantages (and possibly disadvantages depending on your POV) seem self evident.
Also it seems it would be a lot easier to seal against bugs than a whole ugly window unit contraption.
Myself even living in a house, I live alone (in hot Tx) and I've considered getting a window unit to see if it's a better idea to save money just running the window unit in my room at night with the door closed, versus cooling the entire house with central when I'm only using one room all night. Something like this would allow me to test out such a scenario much easier than semi permanently mounting a bulky ass window unit. Which I've also done on a temp survival basis when my central went out, and found it a real pain to seal the window unit against bugs. Those side baffles never quite work exactly right, and you have a huge heavy center of mass chunking everything up and providing holes and irregularities around the mounting. Something like this would be much easier to seal.
If it's a more permanent solution, of course a window unit would likely be preferable, and probably a good deal cheaper.
2 they don't require you to remove a window screen(so less chance of bugs getting in)
3. Less chance potentially damage the storm window frame, sill, casement or the window itself.
4.You don't need to have an exterior support on the outside of the window to hold up the weight of the window AC.
5. Portable ACs are far more secure for your home because you can easily take the entire window mounting kit out of your window and then lock the window at any time, in just a few seconds. Thieves love, I mean looove window AC units because they can just wait until they see the homeowner leave and then go up and push the AC unit into the interior of the house and have a completely clear and open window to access your home. I've heard of situations where someone has just gone up to a window AC unit, lifted the window up and pulled it right out of the window and ran with the entire air conditioner, broken cord and all. 😅
6. They don't make your house look like crap
7. They usually have wheels and handles, so you can actually move them around your house if you need to, or relocate and install into another room in just a minute or two. That's where the portable part comes in.
The downsides are
1. that they can be loud,(although inverter units like this are usually much quieter because they self-regulate the speed of the compressor, so they often don't need to run at 100% like many AC units do all the time. This is why inverter AC units are more efficient)
2. They are less efficient overall than window AC units, this is largely because they have much greater heat emission through convection, conduction and even infrared from the portable AC unit that is inside your house, so all that heat gets dissipated into the interior of your home. The AC pulls that heat out when it cools the air, but it reduces the efficiency. With a window AC unit almost the entirety of the unit is out side, so the majority of that heat is dissipated outdoors rather than in your home.
3. they may need to have their water tank drained regularly in very humid locations,
4. take up floor space,
5. Usually cost more than a window unit for the same btu
just like window units, they have their own electrical requirements. On that last item, you have to consider any air conditioning unit's electrical draw in the same way that you would a space heater. You need to make sure that your wiring is up to the job and that you don't overload the total amperage / power draw for the entire circuit in the room. You can't (physically can, but REALLY shouldn't) use an extension cord on an air conditioner unit. You will want to electrically isolate any electronics that are plugged into the same circuit to prevent damage from the voltage spikes(the milliseconds where the voltage in the circuit is balancing and causing what most people are familiar with as slight "brownouts" because of how it made incandescent bulbs temporarily dim) when the air conditioner turns on and off. A good UPS with built-in voltage regulation should be able to protect your electronics. At the very least get a solid state voltage regulator. Otherwise it is just a matter of time until the cumulative damage eventually breaks your electronics. 😕
If you just need temporary cooling and want to be able to move the air conditioner around, a dual hose/hose-in-hose portable like this is the way to go. If you have central air and it still isn't getting the job done, before buying any AC unit, you should contact a professional heating and cooling company and have them come and take a look at your furnace and air conditioning unit. A lot of times low performance can be fixed by routine maintenance, finding and sealing leaks in the air ducts, or putting an in-line blower into an air vent to increase air pressure and volume to distant rooms to get the air where it needs to be.
You might also want to look at weatherizing your home to reduce leaks and gaps that are letting in hot humid/cold air. Improving Insulation is an investment that almost always sees a dramatic return in just a few years. If you improve the insulation in your home and reduce your electrical and heating bills you can recoup the cost of the insulation in just a couple years; it pays for itself in lower bills. After that, everything you save is just money that stays in your pocket. That really is the best deal, not needing to spend your money in the first place.
Good luck! 👍
If either of these questions is yes, then your very best bet is going to be to have a central air system installed. The HVAC company can put in air ducts up through the floor or down through the ceiling to supply good circulation to every room of your house. Does your fuel oil heat supply a boiler to heat a radiator system, or has it been updated to a furnace?(depending on whether or not you actually have ducts) if it's been updated to a furnace, you're already 60% of the way there, and they would only have to install an air conditioning system in line with the furnace.
If the answer to all of these questions is no, the next best bet for you would be to have one (or more) mini-split systems installed in your home.
Here's a link to home Depot, they carry a pretty wide selection of mini split systems. (But they are also extremely expensive when not on sale, so don't take the prices on home Depot as being any sort of standard.)
https://www.homedepot.c
Here is a search on Slickdeals for past mini split deals to give you an idea of what to expect for a target price range.
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?q
You can get a 12,000 BTU mini split usually for around $550 to $650, but you have to also include the cost to have additional wiring, a new breaker, and the actual installation. An additional $250-400 is not at all unreasonable to have a mini system installed by a professional. Buy your own and then have at HVAC company do the install because HVAC companies typically mark up the cost of equipment and materials between 50% to $175% depending on the project. Get multiple bids and let them know that you are getting multiple bids. 😆
Why would you want a mini split system instead of a window unit? They are quieter, typically more efficient, because they require a new dedicated wire to be installed you can increase the btu capacity beyond anything that you can plug in. Mini split systems can also have a heat pump feature where they can provide heat in the winter as an alternative to your oil heater. (And if you have a new renewable energy system like a solar panel array, can offset the cost of operation with the energy you produce) One of the biggest reasons to consider a mini split system is that you can place the interior heat exchanger practically anywhere in your house without having to run ducts everywhere, ideally in a hallway or somewhere else that connects to multiple rooms. This will give you the best area cooling for your entire house without using a forced air duct system and you can compensate/enhance that by placing a couple fans to help circulate air throughout your entire home a little bit better. An interesting benefit of this is that you can then classify your house as having non forced central air conditioning, which can significantly boost the resale value of your home if and when you decide to sell it. So in summary mini split systems can give you better performance, can be placed permanently practically anywhere in your home, usually provide heat pump features standard, are more effective than window air conditioning units, can raise the resale value of your home, but have higher up front costs.
The next best option is to have a window air conditioner or three placed in areas that you need to have conditioning. Window units, the typical big box air conditioners, are more efficient than portable air conditioning units because they are more compact, cool themselves more effectively without having heat bleeding off into the interior like a portable air conditioner while dealing with the water condensation problem at the same time. Etc, etc, I pretty well covered all of that in the last post.
The next option would be portable air conditioners. And you're absolutely right in that window units whether they be boxes or portable, can only cool a relatively small area because they simply don't circulate air well outside of their immediate proximity. If you can only afford one of either unit you can try to compensate for that by putting a box fan on the floor just inside in the doorway pointing outwards to blow the cool air that is going to be collecting near the floor out into the rest of your house. And the other rooms if you put a box fan just inside the door blowing inwards, it will help pull that cool air into the room and displace the hot air in the top of the room out of the room. That heated air will eventually either equalize and/or make its way back into the room with the air conditioner and take a trip through it. In this sort of configuration you want to have the air conditioning unit in the most centrally located room with window access so that the air doesn't have to travel as far from any one point. You should put the fan with the air conditioner blowing cool air out on medium or high. The lowest setting should be plenty on the other rooms and just give it time to work.
If you live in an arid environment, you might also look into getting a swamp cooler.
And on another note, a pro tip you could say, I place my portable air conditioners up on either a study wire shelf or a table to get them as high as I'm comfortable lifting them to bring them above floor level. The reason for this is that the majority of the heat is going to be concentrating in the upper half of the room, especially at the ceiling. The higher the air conditioner is the more access it has to the hotter air, the faster and more efficiently it will cool the room. I have the insulation wrapped corrugated dual hose ducts angle down slightly to compensate and line up with the window. If you aren't a bodybuilder don't try to lift one of those on your own, that is a two-person job minimum.
⚠️Now in your specific case with an older home it is also extremely important for you to have an electrician inspect your house wiring to see if your electrical system, as is, can even safely run even a 10 amp portable air conditioner. Many older homes, especially those built in the early 1900s were built long before any kind of effective electrical building codes were put in place or enforced. Often times 18 gauge or thinner wire were used during construction. an 18 gauge of modern wire has a maximum of about 12 to 14 amps at 120v before you start having overheating issues under ideal conditions. The wiring manufactured in 1910-20 and installed before life-saving electrical codes were in place? I'd be very concerned about running any kind of high wattage appliances on them. They might only safely be able to run a maximum of 8 to 10 amps.
You might be thinking hey I've used the outlets for appliances and other things before, but things are a little bit different when you're running something like an air conditioner or an electric heater. A person might be able to run a 1500 watt 12.5 amp hot plate for 20 to 30 minutes without any problems on 18 gauge, but when you're running any appliance for more than 3 hours the likelihood of a fire due to overheating dramatically increases. Because of this NEC(national electric code) and virtually every other safety standard recommend derating the capacity to 80% of a circuit's original rating to reduce the likelihood of overheating and electrical fires.
So if you have a 20 amp circuit, you'd only want to be using a maximum of 16 amps on it. A 15 amp circuit, 12amps, etc. If your wiring is old, made of questionable materials and/or a low gauge like 18, it may only be safe to use at about 10 amps to begin with, and derated for safety that's going to be only 6-8 amps which would keep you from using a 12,000 BTU air conditioner safely. You'll just need to size the air conditioner wattage requirements for 80% of whatever the electrician says the wiring can handle.
Now, this might not be the case at all, but before you start using any kind of higher amperage appliances I would strongly recommend that you have an electrician check over your house's wiring and fuse/breaker box just to be safe. Electrical fire is a terrible thing, and can ignite the the interior of your home literally before you know it. Be safe.
Hope that helps. 👍
https://www.amazon.com/JOYOOO-Por...01IXWL72G/
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Can it be bought/shipped with their "1 day pass" ?
Leave a Comment