Koldfront 8,000 BTU Ultra Compact Portable Air Conditioner
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List Price: Our Price: $250.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Koldfront 8,000 BTU Ultra Compact Portable Air Conditioner
Customer Review: These portable AC's do work, don't worry about negative pressure, something else is wrong....
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought one of these and it works great, lowers the temperature of the room a lot cooling the large room it is in. The problems these other folks are having is probably simply due to expecting too much from a small unit, I'd use one of these for a large room not a whole apartment or house, no way will it handle that amount of area. Perhaps some of the complaints are due to trying to cool too large of an area or their insulation is so poor the units won't keep up with the heat coming into the house or room. I can't explain the problems some folk are having except for the above possibilities. I don't see issues with negative pressure pulling in hot air so fast it can't cool the room, works wonderful for me.Customer Review: Well, Actually 3+
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this unit to keep my menopausal roommate comfortable in her room at the back of the house. I live in the central valley of California. We average over 100 the entire month of July, and upper 90s through August (just sayin', you guys who can get cooler than 78 by opening a window). My central air keeps the west end of the house tolerable most of the time, but the east end of the house just never cools off.
So before she moves in, I tell her the back room gets pretty warm and she tut-tuts and assures me that she's one tough broad, and really she is. Only after three nights, she 'fesses up to not sleeping on account of she's so overheated back there. Begin the shopping for a small air conditioner. Here is what I found -- this one is pretty decent looking, it is very reasonably priced, it looks miles better than units costing twice as much. I shopped through Amazon, ordered the thing in 5 minutes or less and the manufacturer notified me within 24 hours that the unit was on its way. Well before the deliver-by date, the unit showed up on my front porch, well-packaged and in perfectly good condition.
The only reason this is a 3 and not a 4 is that the set-up required some extra parts and finagling that we hadn't expected. On the other hand, two cranky, hot, menopausal women got the thing up and running within half an hour, and finished with a pretty decent set-up in another half hour the next night. Roommate says it's a little noisy, but keeps the room cool, looks pretty OK and is way better than sleeping sweaty. Her landlady says she spent way less than she might have for a better product. Both menopausal women less hot, less cranky and generally pretty pleased.
Customer Review: What A Waste of My TIme and Money
Summary: 1 Stars
I had this item shipped from Compactappliance. I set it up and it did not work properly, meaning there was no cold air. It was 90+ degrees and I think the condensor kicked in once for a few seconds, sputtered, and kicked off. I went to Home Depot locally and bought a better product at a better price and it was easier to set up. I did not have to pay extra for a pricey window extension either. It was so difficult dealing with the company that sold it to me. They referred me to customer service of the manufacturer, which appears to be in the same town as the shipper, and I got nowhere because it was next to impossible to even get a call in to them. Endless emails. I finally bucked up and shipped the darn thing back to them at MY expense (around $50.00). Yeah, they said they would look at it, and they did refund my money and gave a credit for a different problem, but then claimed they just put it back in stock, ignoring the fact it did not work. I would hate for you to receive what I did and have to pay to ship it back when it does not work and not have a/c when you need it. So, I lost money buying this non-functioning thing. This has got to be the worst nightmare in years. I regularly order things from amazon and by mail and rarely have any problems.Customer Review: What you need to know about Portable Air Conditioners before you buy
Summary: 2 Stars
Hello everyone!
Portable air conditioners work by taking the air from your room, cooling it, and blowing the hot air out through an exhaust hose attached to your window.
But blowing hot air to the outside creates negative pressure inside your room which, in turn, pulls in more hot air from the outside (the amount of air blown out is equal to the amount of air pulled in). It is kind of self defeating.
The portable air conditioner is able to cool your room as long as the air it exhausts is hotter than the hot air pulled in, then there is an overall cooling effect. But as the temperature outside increas, a small A/C unit may not have enough BTU to to cool the air enough to compensate the hot air being sucked in.
I made the mistake of using a traditional web based cooling calculator to estimate the amount of BTU's needed for a portable A/C. If I had read the web page more carefully I would have noticed that these BTU calculators are for window/wall mounted air conditioners. The major difference between a window A/C and a portable A/C is that the window unit has its heat exchange coils outside and does not create negative pressure in your room (in other words, the cold air in the room is not directly diluted by warm air being sucked in from the outside). Without the negative pressure, there is no hot air being pulled in, so the amount of BTUs needed to cool the room is much less. Of course, even with a window A/C, warm air still seeps into the room but at a lower rate.
I estimate that I would need at least 50% more BTU in a portable air conditioner than that shown in web based BTU calculator for my needs. So instead of the 8,000 BTU Koldfront unit, I should have gotten a 12,000 BTU portable air conditioner.
Note: some portables A/C have two hoses, one for the exhaust and one for the intake so they do not create negative pressure. These units are more effecient and the web based BTU calculator should apply.
Here are the key takeaways:
1. Unless you have a two hose model (which maintains neutral pressure in your room), these portable A/C units are inefficient and are more costly to operate than a conventional through the wall/window air conditioner.
2. If you can, try to get a two hose portable A/C unit. But if not, then you will probably need to increase the portable's BTUs by 50% (or 1.5x) when using a conventional web based BTU calculator. CompactAppliance tried to warn me but I didn't listen. What did you expect from a 13yr old? :-).
3. Do buy from a reputable dealer, such as CompactAppliance. They graciously accepted my return without any hassles. Be sure you always read the vendor's return policy (some have reasonable restocking fees but some won't take it back at all!)
I hope this was helpful.
Customer Review: Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY THIS.
Summary: 1 Stars
So, I live in a studio. Not very big at all. You would think this air conditioner would be able to handle keeping it cool. Well, not so much.
Regardless of how low I set it, or how long I kept it running, it kept my studio at 78 degrees. It was actually a better deal to shut it off, open the windows/door and let the air circulate. It actually got cooler in there once I did that.
Moreover, the hose you connect to the window vent is an eye sore, and isn't flexible enough to let your place the unit somewhere convenient. So you end up having to leave the A/C unit in the middle of the room instead of neatly in a corner or against the wall because the vent hose doesn't allow otherwise.
This is pretty much the worse purchase I have made in a LONG time. Worse of all, it doesn't even make sense for me to return it. The seller charges as 12% "re-stocking fee". Moreover, I would need to carry the huge 70+lbs box up and down stairs to get it back to my work so UPS can pick it up. The box is very flimsy once you remove the nylon ribbons that it comes sealed with, and doesn't really allow you to transport it without spending some money on repackaging.
So yeah, I'm stuck with a $300 70+lbs paper weight. Good times.
[EDITED 07/30]: So I was contacted by the seller (CompactApplience) and their conclusion was that my studio was too big for the 8,000 BTU rating. They actually let me return just the A/C unit without having to worry about packing all the awkwardly-shaped pieces, and reimbursed me for everything, including shipping. Although I've decided NOT to try a different unit with a greater BTU rating, I'm leaving this review here so that hopefully people looking into buying this or any other unit are aware of the importance of considering the size of the room you're trying to cool down when you choose the unit BTU. I was remotely aware of that, but didn't look too much into it, and you saw what happened... Luckily for me, the seller handled the situation superbly well. A happy ending, after all. :)