we had one before we got more permanent air con (we have just moved into a new house and now are back to square one again)...
we had an old fashioned house, with windows that slide open vertically, but if your windows slide open horizontally, it will also work well with the air con vent that needs to slot in. if your windows wind outwards it is not going to be ideal having a portable air con vent attached to the window...
i just wanted to mention something i saw the other night at our local pub.... they had two of the more modern air conditioner units (i think they are called split systems?) mounted on INTERNAL WALLS, with a tube coming out of the unit and going up into the ceiling and probably outside somewhere... i have never seen this before, and have always been told that air conditioners must be mounted on an external wall, yet here before my very eyes are two air conditioners with these tubes taking the hot air outside.... definitely worth investigating!!
in my experience portable air cons are only good if you have the right window to get a good seal around the vent, and also if it is a small closable room (ie with a door, not open plan)...
in any case they are better than nothing, but i would be asking some air con installers about those tube thingie's that i saw.... they didn't look too bad at all.
We have an evaporative Bonaire one. I got it when I used to work for them. It doesn't attach to a window or anything but being evaporative you need it near a window to get it to full advantage. I use it to cool down our kids rooms as they are going to sleep on hot days.
We don't have any other air con at all. Only ceiling fans in all bedrooms.
If you have like a balcony area anywhwere in your unit you can get a fixed mounted split system aircon unit, The pipes and wires run from the main unit which would be on your balcony to the vent unit which would be on an internal wall in the bedroom.....mum and dad have one on an internal wall in their lounge and the two components are no where near each other...the wires and the condensation pipe run through the walls/ceiling cavity to the outside unit that runs it...the other advantage of this is that the noisy bit is outside and would keep the bedroom whisper quiet.....just a thought
Oh and in their last house they had a two storey house,,,the main unit was on the ground floor outside and the vent unit was up on the second floor so they can be placed a fair distance apart...
YOu poor thing...this heat has been terrible in sydney of late - dont know how your surviving without a/c.
Dont know much about portable air cons...melbels idea sounds like a good one though. Another way to keep the room a bit cooler - you have to stop the sun frm hitting the bedroom window...how do youd o that ?? have you seen those cloth awnings - they wind out and in ? have you got heavy duty curtains on the windows ?? it may all sound silly, but our bedroom gets arvo sun. We got a awning thing erected about 6 years ago, and i made some really heavy duty curtains....it defn makes a difference.
Maybe worth getting a air con person out to give you some ideas...wouldnt hurt to get a price..???
We have a portable refridgerative aircon in the kids room and it works great - need to put the tube out the window and empty the water tray each day but it works well in a small room.
Keep in mine evaporative aircon is cheaper but works better in hot dry areas, in humidity you need refrigerative aircon.
melbel, thanks for that, I might look into it. I wonder if it would come for a free quote...surely they would! We have two split systems already, but our bedroom and lounge both go onto our balcony so it wasn't an issue to have it all connected and whatever (I know nothing about air cons...can you tell, lol!). I don't know how they could do it in the kids room though. I owuld rather a split system in there I think if I can.
mbear, We do have vertical blinds and thick curtains on their window. I open the window/blinds through the night and early morning and close it in the later morning to try to maximise the cool air coming in and keeping out the hot air. I would love to get thicker plastic backed curtains, but we don't have the $$ at the moment. We can't have any kind of awning or block out shutters on the windows because we can't alter the outside of the building, being a unit block. And yes this heat sucks big time without any kind of cooling in the living area. Especially in a top floor unit! I just put DD into our bed cause she wouldn't go to sleep in her room. She passed out in about 5mins in my bed! I don't know how people cope without ai rconditioning, I'm such a wuss in the heat!
We thought of a ceiling fan but I don't think it would work well since it would just be blowing around the hot air. I should get a thermometre in there and see how hot it actually does get in there in the height of summer. Gosh it's not even full summer yet!! My poor babies are going to roast!
The windows in there are the sliding ones, vertical. I'm not sure how I would block it off though....maybe thick cardboard or something?? And a block of wood in the tracks of the sliding bit so the kids couldn't open it more....hmmm, would have to give that some thought! I hate having the window open when they're in there.
Againg thanks to everyone for your answers they have given me some food for thought!
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