Summer is when you have a bad time sitting indoors as well as going outdoors. The all-avenging sun is in full rage, dehydrating you to the core, oozing the energy out of you in oodles. Summer is the time, ripe, for the various advertisers to attack the idiot-box with innumerable number of products and no wonder you see at least a 100 thirty seconds advertisements daily. One of the other major product other than soft or cold drinks that is been advertised is the air conditioner. There are myriad choices, leaving the consumers bewildered on which one to choose. If you are living in a studio apartment or on rent and your landlord has given you strict warnings against having any installations been made in the apartment, then you are left with no other choice but a portable air conditioner. It is the most viable way of getting your room cooled without doing any installation. It is also a good option for a small house and for people with low budget. However, there are certain parameters that decide the quality of the air conditioner. Find the things to look out for while choosing a portable air conditioner, in this article.
Choosing Portable Air Conditioner
A portable air conditioner is always a good option if you need to cool a comparatively smaller space and you can even move it from room to room for cooling the other rooms as well. There are certain factors that make a portable air conditioner more reliable and user friendly. Check out what those factors are:
British Thermal Units (BTU)
The first thing that you need to look for while checking out an air conditioner is BTU. BTU is how portable air conditioners are rated in units. BTU is generally equated with the dimension of the room that it needs to cool. So it is always better to go for an air conditioner that has a higher BTU as it will cool quite a good space in your home.
Water Disposal
The next thing that you can look for in an air conditioner is how well the water is disposed by the air conditioner. The process behind an air conditioner is that along with cooling the air, it dehumidifies the air as well while it passes through the air conditioner. As a result of which water is collected and it needs to be removed. While some of the air conditioners collect the moisture and then recycle it through the air, some others have a tube to expel the water into a water tray that needs to be emptied every 6 to 12 hours. You can decide on which one works better for you according to your budget and preference.
Additional Features
Choose a portable air conditioner with the additional features that you want. Many offer heaters, fans, and dehumidifiers that operate independently of the air conditioner. It's usually more cost-effective to pick an all-in-one model if you use the other features as well.
Control Style
You can find air conditioners in manual as well as in electronic versions. For the electronic version, they have more user-friendly controls such as programmable timers and remote controls though manual versions would be more simple and easy to operate.
Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER)
An Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) is the ratio of the cooling capacity of an air conditioner in British Thermal Units (BTU) per hour, to the total electrical input (in watts). The higher the ratio, the less the unit will cost to operate.
