Faulty portable air con unit?

Questions_And_Answers

I've just bought an Amcor portable air conditioner.

It claims to be 'self evaporative', blowing most moisture out of the big heat pipe at the rear and evaporating the rest. It does have a tray at the bottom to collect any excess. So far it's stopping every 30 minutes and requiring draining into an oven tray (the drain is right at the bottom). Humidity in the room is between 45and 55% which isn't excessive.

This surely can't be right, can it?

In theory, you can connect it to a drain pipe but the drainage hole is only a cm from the ground so, as water can't travel uphill, the only place to drain will be the floor! Trying to get in touch with the sellers but it's an hour and a half for a call back currently and the manufacturers 'helpline' is 63p a minute(!). After 15 minutes of that without moving in the queue, I gave that up...

Any advice as to whether it sounds faulty?

ComicGeek

So the duct at the rear is draped out of the window, and not just left inside? Duct sealed around the window opening to prevent hot air coming back in?

What temperature is the room at? You take outside air at 50% relative humidity and 30 degrees Celsius, and you then cool it down through the unit to say 13 degrees Celsius to provide the cooling effect in the room - air at this temperature can't hold as much moisture so about 1/3rd of the moisture in the air condenses inside the unit. Don't believe their claims about the moisture just disappearing, that's what the tray is for! At the moment it would be producing lots and lots of condensate.

You can get a condensate pump which will lift the condensate from the tray to a waste connection. Google boiler condensate pump.

Undervalued

ComicGeek said:

So the duct at the rear is draped out of the window, and not just left inside? Duct sealed around the window opening to prevent hot air coming back in?

What temperature is the room at? You take outside air at 50% relative humidity and 30 degrees Celsius, and you then cool it down through the unit to say 13 degrees Celsius to provide the cooling effect in the room - air at this temperature can't hold as much moisture so about 1/3rd of the moisture in the air condenses inside the unit. Don't believe their claims about the moisture just disappearing, that's what the tray is for! At the moment it would be producing lots and lots of condensate.

You can get a condensate pump which will lift the condensate from the tray to a waste connection. Google boiler condensate pump.

Unless it is in a tiny room I've not encountered a portable unit that will achieve anything like that level of cooling.

I agree about the water collection and I have two AEG units where the outlet is also only about an inch from the floor and the internal tray not particularly large!

I think some newer one (not sure about the OP's) have two separate air circuits so that it draws some air from outside to get rid of the excess heat generated. Otherwise you can't use them in a sealed room as they have to draw air from somewhere in order to blast the heat away down the four inch pipe. That makes them very inefficient, probably only half the cooling power or less of a split unit system.

Insulating the four inch flexible hose with bubble wrap or similar helps a bit, plus of course keeping it a short as possible.

Questions_And_Answers

Thanks for your answers folks.

Pipe is currently out of the cat flap (don’t have a cat at the moment!). I realise it’s not going to bring arctic temperatures but I’d hoped to not have to spend 5 minutes emptying it every half hour... Simply couldn’t use it at night time as it stands. I’ve tried it with the heat pipe out the cat flap and out a (mostly) sealed window but both results are the same. Question remains does emptying it every 30 minutes sound normal?

ic

I'm sat here with a portable, which I've had for several months now.  I've never had to drain it.  I have it venting to an open window, with a window kit doing a fair job of stopping tons of air coming back in. 

In terms of the room you're in, the window is closed, the cat-flap is sealed as best as you can (an old towel perhaps shoved to fill gaps?), and internal doors to the room are closed?  There isn't an open fireplace to let air in?  Is the unit suitably sized to the room you're trying to cool?

Questions_And_Answers

It's currently in a fairly new kitchen. Floor area is about half the size the unit is supposed to cover. Cat flap is completely filled with the pipe and internal doors are as closed as they ever can be when two teenagers are the wrong side of the door from the fridge...!

ComicGeek

A lot of them also have a dehumidifier function as well as cooling, check that you don't have it on the wrong setting. Some only have 0.5 litre tanks, but claim 0.8-1 litre moisture removal per hour in dehumidifier mode, so could easily need emptying every 30 mins on this setting.

To be honest, you're probably doing too well achieving 45-55% humidity, which suggests you may have it on the wrong setting.

Undervalued

ic said:

I'm sat here with a portable, which I've had for several months now.  I've never had to drain it.  I have it venting to an open window, with a window kit doing a fair job of stopping tons of air coming back in. 

In terms of the room you're in, the window is closed, the cat-flap is sealed as best as you can (an old towel perhaps shoved to fill gaps?), and internal doors to the room are closed?  There isn't an open fireplace to let air in?  Is the unit suitably sized to the room you're trying to cool?

As mentioned, most portable air con units work better if the room is not completely sealed as they need air to blast the heat they have recovered down the four inch hose. Some more recent and more elaborate ones are capable of drawing the air for just that part of the circuit from outside. With those then yes you are better with the room sealed as well as possible.

One of mine is in a bedroom with a fireplace. Everything else is well sealed (e.g carpet fairly tight to the bottom of the door etc). I have a proper socket for the hose on the wall. Blocking up the fireplace, which seemed the obvious thing to do, significantly reduced the cooling!

So I wonder with the OP's, if that is designed to get rid of most of the moisture down the 4in hose, whether he doesn't have enough air flow??

I have read that most portable units only give about 1/3rd of the cooling of a similar power split unit for this reason

Questions_And_Answers

ComicGeek said:

A lot of them also have a dehumidifier function as well as cooling, check that you don't have it on the wrong setting. Some only have 0.5 litre tanks, but claim 0.8-1 litre moisture removal per hour in dehumidifier mode, so could easily need emptying every 30 mins on this setting.

To be honest, you're probably doing too well achieving 45-55% humidity, which suggests you may have it on the wrong setting.

The setting was definitely on cool not dehumidify. I had to send photos to the company to prove the problem and the air coming out the front is so pleasantly cold... The 45% humidity was in the room and outside the back door too so... It's not filling up with a huge amount of water but enough to fill the tray over 30 minutes or so. The tray only holds as much as an average oven tray (have to use one to empty it...

Questions_And_Answers

Undervalued said:

As mentioned, most portable air con units work better if the room is not completely sealed as they need air to blast the heat they have recovered down the four inch hose. Some more recent and more elaborate ones are capable of drawing the air for just that part of the circuit from outside. With those then yes you are better with the room sealed as well as possible.

One of mine is in a bedroom with a fireplace. Everything else is well sealed (e.g carpet fairly tight to the bottom of the door etc). I have a proper socket for the hose on the wall. Blocking up the fireplace, which seemed the obvious thing to do, significantly reduced the cooling!

So I wonder with the OP's, if that is designed to get rid of most of the moisture down the 4in hose, whether he doesn't have enough air flow??

I have read that most portable units only give about 1/3rd of the cooling of a similar power split unit for this reason

Mines a one pipe one. I've tried it now with pipe exiting the room low, high, doors sealed tight, doors open and even in the garden! Every time it's 30 minutes to fill the tray when set to 16c and 43 or so minutes when set to 18c. I think it's just not built right inside...

cymruchris

I have a self-evaporating model and a traditional model - the self-evaporator runs for a few hours a day - and I've never had to empty it. The traditional model fills a 5 litre bucket over the course of a few hours due to its location. How is your exhaust pipe set up? Does it have many bends in it? I can see you mention it goes out the cat flap - is the outside of the cat flap kept open? or does the air constantly push against a closing external flap?