I'm in NYC in a basement apartment and my old junky LG 10,000 unit was doing nada.. I don't know if it was broken or just junky it never got anything that cold.Now really, 12,000 btu units are supposed to be for a small space.. 400 to 500 square feet.
As I said I am in a basement apartment and I was SWELTERING... dying!!!!!
I researched every portable air conditioner under the sun and was ready to go out and buy one but the ones in the local stores either blew out ho hum air or were not set up to try at all, and online with all of them I read a lot of people saying they didn't do much... or ho hum reviews... this was the only unit where people wrote really enthusiastic 4 or 5 star reviews. I also learned that you don't even want to MESS with unit that has no exhaust / or just a single exhaust vent. If you are going to get a portable A/C you WANT a dual vented one. One takes air in, the other sends hot air out. This is MUCH more efficient, cooler, and FASTER than no vent / single vent unit and you don't have to be emptying buckets of water either.
I'm an actor/director/editor so I have hot computers running too and there's nothing worse than going to an audition sweaty or having to edit a movie or video in 90 degree+ heat.
I decided this was the one to try but I couldn't find ANY in NYC! Can you believe that? At $490.00 amazon's price is slightly inflated but all other places that had it a little cheaper were out of stock or had ridiculous long shipping waits or high shipping charges.
When I saw this puppy in stock, I grabbed it, and with the free trial of amazon prime shipping I ordered it 2nd day, (which would have cost like $180 on this heavy beast! but I got it free) and low and behold it came the next day!! HALLELUJAH!!! Law of attraction works I tell you!
First off this is NOT a 12,000 btu uit it is 14,000 btu. 2nd it is HUGE, and fairly HEAVY, but it looks nice, like a droid from star wars and luckily it's on wheels, but when the ups guy came it looked like he was delivering a refrigerator.
Second and most importantly this thing blows REALLY cold air. Within a few minutes of turning it on I could feel the blast of air was very cold. I knew that my space is really more like 700 to 1000 sf so I set it on full blast and on 61 degrees. Within an hour it dropped from over 90 and disgustingly humid in here to a cool comfortable 69 degrees even with all my computers running. If I turn off all the computers it gets even colder faster.
CONS:
The only con is that the venting hoses (like a dryer exhaust hose) should have been a little longer. They are about. This won't be a problem for most people but if your window is high, or you have a weird tiny basement window that only opens sideways you will have to mount the dual vents vertically, and it didn't quite make it, so I had to put the unit a little higher on top a little foot stool, and I had to do some duct taping on the window to make sure it was air tight sealed. That;s not their fault though I have really weird tiny nyc basement windows.
Other than that I have no complaints and still give it 5 stars I'm very happy to be writing this in comfort rather than torture. NYC summer this year has been insane with temps hitting 105. This is an old house too and the power usage on this unit is only 10.5 amps so no blowing out the circuit breaker.
The build seems quality hopefully all is well and it will hold up performing as great as it is doing.
Also this unit is MUCH better/cooler than the newer Whynter arc-14s. Whatever they did with that unit they messed up... I was going to buy it in a store and it didn't feel so cool and the guy kept saying that that's because it was in a big space but I mean the breeze coming right out of the machine with my hand right next to it or standing right in front of it was NO where as cool as the arctic blast that shoots out of this arc-12sd machine.
I hope this review helps you out. If you have are looking for a portable AC unit I can't imagine one being better than this.
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