Portable split air to air

QrizB

I thought I'd join in all the air-to-air excitement 😄 but I'm not ready to have F-Gas folk around for a permanent installation (my house is full of stuff my kids have brought back from university and it looks like a candidate for one of those "extreme hoarders" TV shows).

Instead, I have bought a 12k BTU (3.5kW) portable split A2A heat pump.

I was initially looking at the Midea Portasplit 12000 (link) but finding one in stock was proving difficult. Also the best price I could find was £900 which was more than I really wanted to pay (there are units available from Europe for about £700 but once you add shipping, UK VAT and import/handling costs you're back at £900-ish).

So instead I've bought a Prem-i-air EH1960 (link) for £750. It looks a bit more boring than the Midea but performance-wise it's pretty similar, at least as far as I can tell from the numbers on the EU energy label.

It arrived today via Palletline. While it was delivered on a pallet, and in a big box (as high as my kitchen workshops and around 60x70cm footprint), the actual unit seems lighter than my old 9k BTU single-hose air conditioner.

Initial impressions are good; one end of my kitchen gets hot and the other end gets cold, and I can swap that around by switching modes. Compared to my portable AC (which sounds like an airliner taking off) it's much quieter, with most of the noise coming from the outside unit which will be, well, outside in use. Even with both parts inside (in my kitchen) it's not exactly noisy.

If you look carefully at the images in the Heater Shop listing above, you'll notice that the appearance of the unit varies from one picture to another. It actually looks like more like this, which might be a clue to the Chinese manufacturer:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Jn365M0zuGo

Now I need to pick a window (or maybe my patio doors) and get everything in place, so I can enjoy the 5.6 SEER ❄️ / 4.0 SCOP ☀️

(Single-hose units typically get a SEER and SCOP of around 2.5, for comparison. Here's an example (link) that both heats and cools; it claims an EER of 2.6 and a COP of 2.4.)

imtiazahmad

that setup actually sounds like a pretty sensible halfway house between a fixed split system and a typical portable AC. The idea of keeping the noisy part outside while still avoiding a permanent F-gas install seems like a good compromise, especially in a cluttered house where ripping in pipework isn’t appealing. Interesting that you’re getting noticeably better noise levels and still decent efficiency figures; that’s usually the main trade-off with portables. Be good to hear how it performs once you’ve got it properly mounted through a window or patio doors, especially in terms of how stable the temperatures stay over a full day of use.

FreeBear

Looks like the Midea external mounting bracket is only usable if your window opens inwards. Not entirely clear with with the Prem-i-air version, but it also looks like it works best with an inward opening window. For those of us that only have outward opening windows, either one would probably need a custom bracket bolted to the wall outside.

Security would also be a concern - Would imagine it to be a pain to go dragging the outside unit back in through a window every time you go out.

Netexporter

I've just installed a portable 9000 BTU A/C unit to save me from the heat waves. I vented it via the wodd burning stove, which is redundant in the warmer seasons. I've got the wrong sort of windows for the standard venting adaptors, and having the unit on the hearth doesn't waste any space I might want to fill with clutter.

One unexpected thing was that the woodburner soon became red-hot, well 50 degrees hot, which is much hotter than my radiators run at, so I had to insulate it to ensure maximum efficiency. Cools the room a treat. Also R290 refrigerant, which was an unexpected bonus.

QrizB

Today I gave my old single-hose aircon away to a colleague at work. No turning back!

It's forecast to be hot again at the weekend, so I'll see how well it works.

And my energy-metering smart plugs arrived in the Yodel, so I'll be able to tell how much power it's using too.