debs1966

Hi Guys

Can anybody please advise me I am looking to purchase a portable air con system because
I am really concerned being our 1st summer in Perth argghhh that we are going to be frazzeled.

My mum and daughter are coming in a few weeks time and there is no air con at all in the rooms where they will be stopping not even a ceiling fan so could be pretty tough for them.

Can anybody please advise me which are the best portable air con machines to purchase are please ie. make and type? Also, where is the best place to get them from?

There is no point getting ceiling fans etc because we are in a rental.

Hope you can help.

Cheers

Debs

eddie007

They can be V ERY expensive to both buy and run......

Keep them on desk fans and a spray bottle of water for as long as you can....

Cheetah7

We bought a small portable air con unit that you add water to and plug in, it was $99 from Good Guys. We got it for Dad as he couldnt cope with the temperatures and he loved it.

We have it in our room now, a bit noisy but you can even add ice to it so the air is a bit colder. Its nothing fancy but for our little house, did the trick.

goldchoccycoin

I have had a Nobo Cool portable aircon for 3 years now. It's great, very effective in my bedroom (average sized double with ensuite) and isn't too noisy and not expensive to run. I only run it at night so I can sleep well and my electricity bill is usually about $100 more over the summer quarter. Wouldn't want to be without it.

I got it from Harvey Norman and paid about $600 3 years ago. Worth every cent! No problems with it either.

roaringmouse

Portable air-cons tend to be on the noisy side compared to proper systems - we have one in our rental as there's no cooling system (and no insulation). We got ours 4 years ago for around $700, but I notice you can get them from around $400 now, though not sure how powerful they'll be.

Here in Melbourne it's not so bad as we tend to get a couple of hot days (36+ degrees) which is followed by a cool change. In Perth though, I believe you can get longer stretches of hot weather. For us this means we don't use ours every day (last summer was a "good" one with only 2 days of 40 degrees, and we ended up using the portable air-con for maybe 5-7 days in all) - our summer electric bills are much cheaper than our winter, as we use heaters in the winter.

There are some things you can do to help, in addition to the portable air-con. Firstly, keep curtains, windows & doors closed during hot days - and open them if it cools down in the evening. If you have blinds on the outside of windows that you get on some houses, then keep them down as they do help! Also when you know it's going to be a hot day, get the air-con going before you need it as it will help when it really warms up.

For the day time, don't forget to check out shopping centres in your area for the best air-conditioning! This will save your electricity, and it's likely to be cooler than your house anway. Cinemas can also be a good distraction if you don't mind paying to see a film!

Also with a portable air-con, using a fan near to the unit is a good thing to do as it blows the cold air further.

quiff

Hi
We bought 2 delonghi portable air con units from Hardly Normal when we first moved into our house in 2008, they are good i didn't notice the elec bill but frankly i didn't care although they need to be used in a room ie, no good just stuck in open plan house. Two years on we had air con put in sold one unit kept the other, 1, because the resell price is not worth it, 2 because our theatre room has 2 big windows and can sometime be a bit warm.

My advice would be yes keep blind/curtains closed, open the doors/windows to the fremantle doctor and a fan too.

We also used to put wet towels over the dogs and sometime ourselves when it was extremley hot

Good luck and enjoy your visitors

commonwealth

If I remember correctly, these portable aircons work only in humid conditions? If it's a dry environment it won't work well?

eddie007

Dunno... We got a small refrigerated unit for the Grey Nomads.... Not the evaporative units... Maybe thats why it got so expensive????

Spray bottle and desk fan works just as well.....

Not that I'm cheap or anythink

DeadVim

Wimps ...

commonwealth

i stand corrected, it seems evaporative coolers are better suited to dryer less humid conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

Kooky.

We have a $100 evaporative cooler from Bunnings, you can use with or without water in the reservoir. We got it as a cheap, short-term solution when we were in a rental with nothing but now we own, we have some rooms without aircon so it comes in handy.

I've just found last year's thread in which I said "we have this discussion every year"

eddie007

As predictable as christmas... So WHY are people unprepared?.

By the way how much was a coles iceburg this week? We went to spud shed