Frigidaire - 11,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - White

First of all, I live in New Orleans, Louisiana. That's right... the Big Easy... the Swamp. 3 - 4 months out of every year we get 90 - 100 degrees that feels like 110 - 120. Humidity can be as high as 90 percent. The majority of houses in our city are old. Mine? It was built in 1874. We have 12 foot ceilings, wood floors, etc and we are insulated well. We have a 5 ton A/C unit for 2700 sq ft. In any other part of the country, that would work. Here? Forget about it. We keep the central unit set on 80 for the rest of the house. And then in my study I have a small window unit. In my master bedroom, we have the portable roll around thing. Well, the roll around 12,000 BTU we bought 3 years ago died. My wife and I were not sleeping in a sweat box tonight. So after hitting Home Depot, Lowes, 2 Wal Marts and a Target, and finding nothing over 7,000 BTUs, I thought.. hmmm Best Buy? My wife walked in, found this unit as an open box special, grabbed it and came home. It set up easy. Fired right up. 2 hours later our 22 x 18 bedroom PLUS the master bath (15 x 14) were at a cool 72 degrees. Now I've read some of the reviews here and some people just need to learn how to read directions. Here are a couple of 'tips': 1) ALL A/C Units have drain/drip pans. Window units drip on the ground. Portable roll around units like this one have a drain hose. Put a 2 - 5 gallon bucket behind the unit. Stick the hose in it. Make sure you check it every 8 - 12 hours. If it is full, pick it up and dump it. Then you won't have a flood... 2) When you attach the air vent hose to the back of the unit. Give the hose a twist. It WILL stay attached. 3) Buy some adhesive backed thick foam rubber. Why? When you put the exhaust host on to the vent, the vent gets held into your window by the pressure of the window coming down on the vent. You want an air tight seal. Step 1: Line the ends, and top, and bottom with the foam rubber. Step 2: Stick the vent hose in and twist. Step 3: Insert vent assembly into your window. Step 4: Pull the window back down on top of the vent assembly. Viola! Air tight. 4) This unit is for a maximum of 540 sq ft. Don't expect it to make an igloo out of your 2000 sq ft home. It is a room unit, not an entire home unit. Don't expect it to perform like a central A/C. if you use it for what it is intended to be used for... guess what? It's a GREAT machine!

My heat pump went out before Memorial Day, and it's taken forever for it to be replaced through my home warranty. So, buying this AC unit was a must. The heat and humidity have been horrible this summer. I used this unit in my LR/DR and it kept that area very cool. The cool air extended into my kitchen and down the hallway. My main living floor is slightly under 1000 SF. I kept the unit as low as it would go at 62 and was able to be quite comfortable, cold even at times, in my living room. While the unit is heavy, it has wheels that make it easy to move around on the floor. I kept the unit situated near my front door, so there was a lot of heat coming in every time the door opened, but the unit handled it with ease. My only real complaints are that it was somewhat louder than I was expecting, but not intolerably loud and the whole window hook-up thing. I guess I didn't really think about having to have the unit vent somewhere, so I wasn't really expecting that. Also, I didn't find the fit of the hose in the window brace to be stable and it came out a couple of times when the AC unit was moved slightly. If I were going to use it on a more permanent basis, I would've fitted it out a little differently so that the stability of the hose wouldn't be an issue. I also wished the hose were a little longer, as I had wanted to move it into my kitchen for the dogs, but the hose wouldn't go from the unit to my kitchen window over the sink (my only window in the kitchen.) Overall, however, I am extremely pleased with my purchase and don't know that I would've been able to manage in this heat and extreme humidity without it. I would definitely recommend it.

In 4hr period, it cooled my 300sqft studio over 20 degrees! It's as loud as any other a/c unit-especially those used at hotels! The only issue was the installation-which was easily fixed after spending an extra $5 at Walmart!! (Duck Tape, a short garden hose, and a mop bucket) -When putting the exhaust hose & connectors together-you may need a little extra patience and needle-nose pliers to pull the hose in a little. Once the a/c is in place (however/wherever you want it used), use DUCK TAPE to keep it together so it doesn't come out-like people have been complaining about. -Take the bucket and put it behind the unit (since there's room from the exhaust hose back there), put one end of the garden hose in the bucket and connect the other end to the drain. After being on for almost 2 days at 73, the drain only dumped about 2 gallons!...That's it! A half hour of work = A LOT of comfort! Totally worth it!

I needed a portable A/C because my condo association will not allow window units and the central A/C would not be turned on for a few weeks. After doing some research on portable units in general, I opted for this model. I have been using this for over two weeks and I am pleased with the performance. It absolutely cools my bedroom (14 feet by 18 feet) and with the help of a small fan it takes the edge off my 600 square foot condo during a 90 degree day. After reading some online reviews I expected the unit to be extremely loud. I sleep with a fan every night and this was about the same with respect to noise. I personally did not feel that the unit was too loud or affected my sleep. Set up was easy, once the unit was physically in my condo (it is heavy). It does what it is supposed to do. Would I recommend this to a friend? absolutely. If I could have bought a cheaper window unit I would have. However, that was not an option and I am completely satisfied with this product.

I needed this portable unit for my master bedroom (180 sq feet). Temp in Miami in mid August is in high 90's and very humid. I was reluctant to buy this unit due to some bad reviews. In the end, I had no choice as this was the only available unit in the store. The unit is well built of quality material. Un-boxed the unit and started it in less than 20 minutes. The only slightly tricky part is installing the vent hose and the window panel, but no big deal. In less than an hour it had the room real cool, even though it is on the top floor and has a big sliding glass door leading to the balcony. The sound is quite normal for any type of a/c unit or even quieter and at any fan setting. Cannot believe that some people found this unit too loud! Controls are very simple, clear and easy with no hassle. Very user friendly.

I use this for a large 3rd floor finished attic room (approx. 16 ft x 18 ft) that has my AV system and computer. The unit has really good air flow and does a great job cooling on most days. On extremely hot days (nineties) with high humidity it does not get the room really cool when I am watching a movie on my 55" LCD with my 7 x 100 watt AV reciever running. The unit does make some noise, but no more then I expected, and it is something I got acclimated to. I'd rather have an AC that makes noise and cools then a quiet one that does not cool! I hooked up the plastic tube that came with the unit to the upper drain and have it drain into an empty milk gallon. The unit sure does take a lot of moisture out of the air as it filled the milk gallon 3/4 up after about 12 hours of runnimg time over the course of four days. All in all I am satisfied with my purchase.

My ancient apartment has almost no ventilation throughout and is always ten to fifteen degrees hotter than outside. Those crazy summer heatwaves sometimes get my room into the high 90s and as high as 105-110! It is unbearable. I could no longer take the sleepless nights in the heat and picked up one of these units. I had to "ghetto rig" the exhaust hose up to the crank out style window using a ton of cardboard and duct tape. I have it sitting on a metal computer desk that is level with the window sill. Pros: -Will drop the temp of the room around ten-fifteen degrees and keep it there. While not as great a window mounted unit, I'll gladly take 85 degrees over 95. The best performance I've seen so far is walking into my room @ 85 degrees and eventually getting it down to 70 (took 6 hours of continuous use). -Remote. -Timer so you don't end up running it all night. -Not as loud as I was expecting it. Cons: -Produces a ton of water via the drain. It took no time to fill up a five gallon bucket. -Air blows straight up. I had to rig a piece of cardboard to deflect the cold air into the rest of the room instead of straight into the ceiling and back towards the hot exhaust tube. -The exhaust hose always comes loose from the unit -Exhaust hose is not as flexible as I was hoping. A quick tip I'd like to provide is sealing up all the doors and windows leading into the room you have the unit working in. The edges around my door have huge gaps that let in tons of hot air from the rest of the apartment. Some foam sealant tape and a door sweep helped with those problems and contribute to keeping the room cool.

I got this to cool my garage this summer and not be wrenching in the heat, but with the recent heat wave it got loaned out to a friend who is renting a small house with her toddler son and does not have A/C. Setup was pretty painless except for attaching the vent hose ends. For the house it is in, the thing works great. I would estimate the house is about 600 sq.ft. which is a little over what the unit is rated for, but so far there have been no problems. I would guess that when we got it running the temp in the house was in the mid 90's. After about 10 minutes there was a very noticeable drop in the temp, and from the call I got this morning everything is working out great. Besides the vent hose design, the only other thing that I can complain about is not including a drain hose for the water catch pan. If you get one make sure you pick up a short length of hose to screw on to the drain fitting. Looking at the thing, I can see the pan filling up quick so I had her leave the drain hose permanently attached to the fitting and have it draining into a bucket instead of the pan.