Bought one last time round.
Used it all last year and so far this year…
Knock on wood, no issues.
Have never had to drain it…and it’s been very humid lately.
Up-State NY.
It cools most of the first floor, using a nice vertical Lasco fan to push the air into the kitchen from the living room, where it’s located.
A little louder than I’d like, but what are ya’ gonna do? No louder than a window unit…but my 100 pound wife can open the window on days when it’s not needed…she couldn’t remove a window unit.
On the caster deal, I am reasonably sure that they are not some custom/one off item.
If I wasn’t using mine, I’d pull one and measure the pin…
Take one with you to Office Depot…look on ebay and get ones that’ll go on a chair…
The shipper is the one who dropped it/broke it…don’t blame Sharp…
If the box is all banged up on the bottom, don’t accept it/or open it to see if it’s ok first,before they leave. Take a picture…
Woot knows how to rub it in, I bought this last time for $249.00 and it just arrived last night. One of the wheels was smashed but not enough to cause issues. It has cooled the house down but it had help of dropping temps outsite, if I could use a window unit safely I would never buy a portable unit. I actually picked this up as a backup for my Soleus. The sharp is quieter then my 3+ yr old SOLEUS AIR LX-100HP and I really like the screen and rain vents on the Sharp’s window kit, the Soleus came with none of that; birds, bugs, whatever can fly right down the hose, thankfully nothing has bothered. Not sure I like the Sharps need the remote to do anything, my Soleus remote has went missing for seasons at a time. Unfortunately having owned it less then 24hrs, I can’t say too much. I haven’t tried the ion option on it and I am curious if I will have to dismantle it every year like I do the Soleus to keep the evaporative function working for drainage.
Bought one the last time around. Be aware that this machine has a drain system if the out-the-window discharge cannot keep up. I high humididty it will not. The drain is very low, so you will have to disconnect the unit, run it to a door, and discharge it on the ground; a real pain. The unit does do the job, though.
I live in So. Calif. and the temperature outside have been over 100 degrees with very low humidity, I purchased one these units last time from WOOT for an office we have in our house that has three people all working on computers and this unit is quite enough so they can talk on the phone and it brings down the temperature to the point it is cold in the room.
I would buy again
I would like to vouch for the longevity of these Sharp portable air conditioners with a lengthy statement:
Ours was purchased used (heavily used–missing a wheel, remote, and vent flap thing) about 7 years ago. The AC is now faded yellow from outdoor exposure but still runs like new.
We’ve used it for the dogs in the garage during the summer, cooling an attic, climate control for an indoor garden, and loaned it out to numerous friends for various uses.
Someone that was returning the AC to us left it outside since nobody was home and it went un-noticed, occasionally getting rained on and baking in the Florida sun for some time before I realized it and just left it for dead. AC sat outside for at least another month before I got around to disposing of it.
Before I threw the AC out, I plugged it in and cold air started blowing; business as usual. That was several years ago and, as aforementioned, the Sharp portable AC is still running fine!
That depends on where you live, I used my neighbors unit when our central unit was out. We had to empty it twice a day. In south Florida this is OK for a small area on an interim basis but is too inefficient for regular use, use a wall shaker instead for everyday needs. I got one in case of hurricane(my generator is only 110) or if I need to work in my garage.
We own a similar unit - an LG, though. We have casement windows in our upstairs bedroom which make a window unit difficult. That said, we are extremely happy to have one of these portable AC units. My husband rigged it so that it drains into a bucket so we aren’t interrupted overnight with emptying it. It sits on a little platform he made to raise it up so it’s easier to empty. Yes, it would have to be emptied often otherwise here in our extremely humid summer (these things don’t work as advertised in our climate in SE lower Michigan). It isn’t overly noisy - we live in a city and run a white noise machine anyhow, and it sounds like decent white noise to me, no ON then OFF or clicking or anything. We are extremely happy with our unit. But I feel that if you expect “out of the box perfection” these are not for you.
Exterior units blow outdoor air over the condenser to carry away waste heat. This unit uses indoor air for the condenser, and since this air becomes hot, exhausts that air outside. So in effect you are using the AC to cool the room air, then taking part of that air you just cooled and wasting it by venting it outside to run the AC unit. This air is replaced in the room by warm ambient air that leaks in to take its place.
I used one of those washer trays you can buy at the home impovements stores, and let my Solius unit drain into that, and then I used a hand pump to empty it as needed. I think the pump was ment of syponing gas or something, they sell them cheap at places like harbor freight. I was considering a small electric pump like for fish tank or something, but I fixed my AC unit so it is evaporating most of the water again and I have only had the tank need to be drained once this year.
We bought one of these last year and we’re happy with it. Everything works fine. As others have said, it is heavy, and not that easy to move around. Window units would be more efficient and work better, but our living room windows are a weird size. I took the window out, took it to a glass shop and they created a plexiglass replacement panel with the hose vent unit attached to the plexiglass for about $100. In the fall, I can remove it and replace the window for the winter.
You can improve both the aesthetics and the function if you sew a piece of fleece fabric into a tube, and shimmy that onto the hose over your foil. If you use a fleece color that matches your wall or draperies or carpet, the tube becomes much less noticeable - and it is much better insulated.
I would estimate that adding a fleece hose-cozy improved the performance of mine by at least 25%.
Same here! I bought one last year when Woot had it for $219, never had any problems, works great, have never had to drain the water pan. Well worth this amount of money if you don’t want the look of a window unit or if a window unit is not an option.
bcraig15 has it correct. The bottom line is, never purchase a one hose portable A/C. Only the two hose units are reasonable machines. The one hose units (unfortunately, most of the portable A/C on the market are one hose) are almost a scam. (By the way, the exhaust hose will always be warm. The key is to bring in outside air through the second hose to cool the condenser as done with most A/C and not use cool room air for that purpose. As bcraig15 pointed out, the cool room air will be replaced by hot outside air making the one hose A/C VERY inefficient.)
I’m moving into a place that only allows through-the-wall air conditioners. These air conditioners are very expensive. I rather buy this which I could since I could take it with my if we do move down the road. It seems like a great deal and as much research as I’ve done, this is by far the best value. My worry is reading about the broken wheels. I’m going to using this in the living room and bedroom. I would hope Sharp would replace them free of charge through the warranty.
I also live in SE Michigan, and I also have an LG portable air conditioner. I’ve had it for 2.5 years, and I have literally NEVER had to empty it. The reservoir has never once gotten full. I even attempted to drain it last fall when I shut it down for the winter, and there wasn’t a single drop of water to empty out. The key is to make sure the hose is in an “S” shape curve between the back of the unit and the window. This allows the water vapor to exhaust properly without dripping back down the hose back into the unit.
My parents bought one last year for their retirement home in Eastern Tennessee. They just bought an 8000BTU window unit by GE, and the window unit cools the 16x30 room much faster and keeps it better moderated than this 10kBTU Sharp.