Best Portable Air Conditioners for Apartments in 2022

Depending on the climate around where you live, your heating and cooling needs might be typical or very unique. These needs will determine the kind of heating and cooling solution that can work in your home.

With manufacturers all over the world competing to amaze consumers with revolutionary products, we have a wide range of options to choose from when it comes to heating and cooling our homes, gone are the days when we only have a limited number of options.

The portable air conditioner is one of the modern additions to this industry. It can cool small interior spaces effectively, but owing to its small form factor, it is portable and also more affordable than fixed air conditioners.

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Our Recommended Portable Air Conditioner in 2022

10) Shinco 8,000 BTU

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

9) TOSOT 8,000 BTU

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

8) COSTWAY Portable Air Conditioner

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

7) MIDEA MAP08R1CWT

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

6) BLACK+DECKER BPACT12WT

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

5) Unit – 900W 8000 BTU

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

4) Whynter ARC-14S

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

3) BLACK+DECKER BPACT10WT

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

2) BLACK+DECKER BPACT14WT

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

1) BLACK+DECKER BPACT08WT

Last update on 2024-04-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Should You Buy a Portable Air Conditioner?

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that come with owning a portable air conditioner.

Save Window Space
One major setback that comes with window air cleaners is the fact that they take up too much window space. This means that if you live in an apartment building that has one or two windows, every single square foot of window space is precious.

Installing a portable air conditioner ensures that cooling only takes up a small part of your window space so that the rest can be used to fill the house with natural lighting. You will be able to withstand the high summer temperatures without having to sacrifice your entire window.

Ease of Installation
Of all air conditioners, a portable air conditioner is the easiest to install in a room. Most models come with installation kits with instructions on how you can fit the exhaust hose so if you are a hands-on person. You can even do the installation yourself.

Spot Cooling
The fact that it is mobile means that you can move the entire unit accordingly so that the burst of cold air can point towards the area of the room where it is needed most.

However, it’s important to note that this mobility is limited to some extent because the unit has to be tethered to the exhaust outlet. This means that you should plan the installation accordingly to ensure that cold air from the portable AC can reach most if not all parts of the room.

Energy Efficiency
Portable air conditioners may be limited in that they can’t cool the entire room at once, but this also means that they don’t have large fans with powerful motors that consume a lot of energy. Instead of using fans to blow air far, the entire unit can move closer to the area that needs cooling.

This means that you get to spend less on power because the cooling is done using more efficient equipment.

Best Portable Air Conditioner for an Apartment

Apartment buildings without central AC units can be hard to cool in the summer. Fortunately, just because your apartment does not come with a central or window air conditioner does not mean that you have to find a way of living with the heat.

A portable air conditioner can easily solve your problems without the need for complex installation procedures that will give you a hard time when you have to move to a new apartment. However, not just any portable air conditioner will work for you.

Here are some things you need to think about when choosing a portable air conditioner for your apartment:

Installation: Although the installation is usually easier than most other air conditioners, portable air conditioners will still need to be installed in your home. You will need to first find out if you will be able to install the exhaust outlet on your windows and if you will need extra fittings to have it in place.

Exhaust Hose Length: The length of the venting hose is one thing that affects the actual portability of the portable air conditioner. The unit will only be able to cool the parts of your apartment that it can reach, so you need to make sure that you have an exhaust hose that’s long enough to reach most – if not all – parts of your apartment.

Apartment Size: Different portable air conditioners are designed for rooms of different sizes. However, the rating will not be given in square feet. Instead, you will get the rating in British Thermal Units (BTUs). Generally, the higher the BTU rating on a portable air conditioner, the more cooling power it has. If you have a large apartment with rooms that are higher than 1000 square feet, you will need a portable air conditioner with a rating of at least 18,000 BTUs.

Here are some of the best performing portable air conditioners for use in apartments:

Best Portable Air Conditioner for a Small Room

Depending on the number of occupants and how well ventilated it is, a small room can get hot and stuffy very quickly. Even during the colder parts of the year, small rooms generally need more cooling. This worsens in the hot summer months.

To ensure that you don’t have to constantly worry about too high temperatures in the room, investing in a portable air conditioner is a great idea. The best thing about small rooms is that they are relatively easy to cool and portable air conditioners are perfect in these environments.

The vent does not take too much window space, and the air conditioner can send cold air to almost any part of the house. This means improved performance without having to spend a lot of money on a central or window air conditioner while at the same time avoiding big structural changes in the room.

A portable air conditioner for a small room needs to be compact enough to occupy a small space in the room. However, this does not mean that performance should be compromised. It should be able to deliver sufficient cooling performance to cool the entire room.

If you need to move it around the room to spot-cool specific areas, some wheels or castors will come in handy. Another very important consideration is the cooling strength. The portable air conditioner needs to produce enough cold air to sufficiently cool the room that you’d like to cool. This is checked using the unit’s BTU rating.

Here are some models of portable air conditioners that perform exceptionally well in small rooms:

Best Portable Air Conditioner for a Bedroom

Bedrooms are important rooms in your home because you spend a big fraction of the time that you spend at home there. It is therefore important that you make sure that they are as comfortable as possible.

One way of doing this is ensuring that the temperature in the bedroom is within acceptable levels. A portable air conditioner is one of the most effective ways of controlling the temperature in your bedroom. It’s better than large central AC units because it is more affordable to own and run while at the same time delivering pretty much the same results.

When buying a portable air conditioner for your bedroom, there are some factors that you will need to consider to ensure that you choose a model that will solve your needs. The first one is noise production. You don’t want to choose a portable air conditioner that will keep you awake at night because of producing too much noise so pay attention to the decibels that it produces.

Another great feature to have in a portable bedroom air conditioner is automatic cooling. This is where you set the temperature that you would like maintained in the room, and the air conditioner monitors the ambient temperature and adjusts its function accordingly.

Here are some of the best portable air conditioners for bedrooms:

Conclusion

Whether you are looking for something to complement your struggling ventral HVAC system or if you want something simple to cool your home in the few summer months when temperatures are at their highest, a portable air conditioner can be the perfect solution if you have unique cooling needs.

In addition to the specific features mentioned above for choosing portable air conditioners for use in the different environments we have mentioned, you need to also think about the hose setup. This is because some portable air conditioners come with one hose while others come with two.

A single-hose portable AC takes in air from the room, cools a portion of it and sends it back to the room. The rest of the air is used to cool the refrigerant in the condenser to produce hot air that is sent out through the exhaust. This way, no negative pressure is created in your room. However, it is less portable and requires a more demanding installation process.

By doing this, the single-hose setup will create negative pressure in the room because the air going out through the exhaust is air coming from the room. Cooling efficiency is also reduced because the negative pressure in the room will cause warm air to be sucked into the room through the door and windows.

These problems are solved by a dual-hose design that cools and returns 100% of the air back into the room. One hose then sucks in air from outside for cooling the refrigerant before it is released back into the atmosphere.

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