Danby - Designer 11,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - Gray

Location: Northern Colorado - 20% humidity at best year round, 100*+ summers. The last few weeks have been hitting 100*, today will too, and the rest of the week. Apartment: 600sq ft unit with partially open loft upstairs. Ceiling slopes with the roof from the downstairs all the way to the upstairs where it becomes flat. Ceiling is usually warm to the touch, and a section of wall along my stairs is adjacent to a crawl space - this is usually HOT to the touch. Poor insulation? Anyway, big space.. 20+ foot tall ceilings, south facing... I basically have been cooking in here for the last two summers. No AC on a 100* cloudless day is regularly 95* downstairs, 105* upstairs, 140* in the crawl space. The unit: Heavy, but less than the 9k btu Frigidaire. It's also smaller than the Frigidaire. ALL AIR CONDITIONERS ARE HEAVY! I read thousands of reviews before purchasing an AC... so many brands and models earn 1 star because the purchaser didn't think 'Oh, 70 lbs might be a little much for me to lift up the stairs'. Style is acceptable, I'm a function over form type person anyway. The included WHEELS are great, moves easily over carpet. The hose is of very high quality and will NOT disconnect from either the window OR the unit when you move it around a bit. The hose expands and contracts with ease, each spiral snaps tightly together when compacted, and it's pretty long too. The hose does get pretty warm to the touch despite how thick it is, but I don't see it at all being necessary to insulate. Window kit is GREAT and can fit any window in my house (some 60" tall, some much smaller) both standard and casement. Drain hose is of good length, I like how and where it connects to the AC (bulkhead half way up unit on back). Despite my super low humidity I'm still collecting water, maybe 1/4th a gallon every 24 hours. If I drained this in to a pan instead of a somewhat sealed jug then it would evaporate with no accumulation. Noise is OK, it's a little louder than my 5,000 BTU old window unit. I would expect this to be the case since it's over 2x as powerful AND has to move air through a duct to vent. I have no reason to think this is any louder than other portable units. Mine did have a slight squeak that was a little irritating for the first night of use. Pushed my hand on the front to stop the vibration, squeak stopped, didn't come back when I let go and still hasn't. My apartment is awesomely comfortable right now, upstairs started mid-morning at about 84* and is now 78* despite it just getting hotter and hotter outside. It would certainly be above 90* at this time of day with the outdoor temperatures being what they are. Oh yeah, the unit has only been running for 1.5 hrs. THE ONLY THING I dislike about this unit is the display - it's impossible to read from the wrong angle, even if you're within a few feet. If this weren't the case then I could use the remote from the bottom of my stairs (or, if the remote had digital display on it too). I would also have preferred a dual-hose unit for efficiency sake but I feel like I'm seeing less and less dual hose units on the market? Wrapping this up: Excellent unit as long as it remains functional, as I've had it less than a week. Cooling a much larger space than rated in some of the most difficult circumstances, worth the investment.

I'm quite happy. I got this unit a couple of weeks ago. I have a new media room obtained from a remodeling of the attic space above my garage. About 280 sq feet with cathedral ceiling, A/C was taken there during the remodeling but some more flow would be needed to be really comfortable. Garage in underneath, and even if insulation is good, of course the room is not exactly the same as the others. This room always had about 4-5 degrees more than all the rest of the rooms. I couldn't put bigger A/C ducts because of the space necessary to do it, so I got this Danby 11,000 BTU unit to solve the issue. Well, even when the main home A/C is off, with this portable A/C I'm able to lower temp where I need in about 5 minutes !! I think it is because this unit can cool down room bigger than 280 sq feet, and with the cathedral ceiling there is less air to actually cool down. I'm quite happy about this. For the details, I'm using the unit with the continuous drain to eliminate water, and I have done a pass through in the wall for both exhaust air and discharge pipe. On the negative side only the fact it is a bit noisy, but it is fine since this is not a bedroom (I would have issues sleeping with that noise) and it is a media room, I just keep the volume of the home theater high, so I don't hear the conditioner any more :-)))

I have this in my home office which is only 135 sq ft. It should work like a champ. It is currently 89 degrees outside. The unit shows 83 degrees after running for 3 hours on AC mode when I set it to 73 degrees. The AC sounds and seems to push out cooler air. Unless this unit is not working properly, this is a fail. The hookup was dead simple ... The water build up is significant, I guess depending on humidity. They only give you a hose without anything to catch the water with. The alternative is to manually open another valve and catch the exiting water. Again for that they don't supply anything to catch the water with either. The hose to the window can be stretched a lot, which I think is great. The sole purpose of this appliance is to cool down a room when it is hot. Cooling it 6 degrees as described above is a fail and thus gets a single star. I would give 0 stars if that would be an option. I am sweating while I am writing this.

First of all, portable air conditioners will NEVER turn your apartment or garage into a refrigerator. Nor are they as efficient as window units. That being said, this unit cools my bedroom effectively, but I don't expect it to cool my whole apartment. It runs more often than not, but maintains a bedroom temperature about 10-15 degrees cooler than my other rooms in the middle of the day. This unit comes with the LONGEST EXHAUST KIT of any I have researched (full 80"). Pretty much a free patio door kit, this was the only unit that would fit my application (tall sliding windows). The bad, no reservoir that can be removed to dump the accumulated water. Instead, you have to use a hose and/or shallow pan. Warranty is better than most and offers in home service. Price seems about average amongst 11,000btu units.

Did not cool the amount of space it had adverstised. Had to use regular fan in front of air conditioner to blow air around room to circulate what cool air there was. Is easy to use and get running, but the temperature is what counts and it just doesn't deliver. Would not encourage anyone else to get one. Since then others I have spoken to have taken theirs back for the same issue.

portable sounds like a nice idea. But the reality is that it will only do one room and won't migrate out of a doorway or into other rooms.