I am renting a place where the only air conditioner is a window unit mounted in the wall in the main living area. The space in that main room is about 325 sq ft, and it has a 9 ft ceiling on average. The unit is a Frigidaire FAS182H2A1. It looks like it was manufactured in 1999, but I can't recognize any other useful specs on the partially worn labels. So, I don't know what its BTU rating is, and I couldn't seem to find the manual online. Earlier in the spring, I felt it wasn't cooling well, and I took off the front panel to see that it was caked with about 1/8" of dust and pet hair from previous tenants. The landlord removed this, but the aluminum fins were still clogged with gunk. I tried the only thing that our local Home Depot had for this which was an aerosol can of foaming cleaner, so I sprayed and scrubbed for a couple days. It looks a lot better, but I am not certain the fins are really cleaned out. The air conditioner is still occasionally spitting out what looks like chunks of dried black gunk that has been displaced from between the fins.

Last week it was about 95 degrees F outside, and after several hours of this thing being turned on to its max level, the room cooled down to about 81 degrees (with all doors to other rooms closed). I used a thermometer I had to measure the temperature of the air coming out of the unit, which was between 67 and 68 degrees. It's only getting hotter outside (ugh), so I'd like to try to do something about this. So, here are my actual questions: How much cooling should I expect from this unit? Is it properly sized for the space? Is there anything I can do to improve its performance? According to this, the Frigidaire FAS182H2A1 is an 18000 BTU device. That's pretty powerful if working properly. The government suggests 8000 BTU for 325 SF. Check your outside coils too and clean if needed. If that is not a problem it could be something internal. partial clog in your expansion valve. If cleaning the outside coils doesn't work, I do not expect repair to be practical.

You can buy a new 10,000 BTU unit from Home Depot for $300. It would be reasonable to ask the owner to pay for it. Just for clarification, there are two sets of fins. The inside ones and the outside ones. The outside ones will get caked with pollen, dust, dirt, bugs, etc and form a matte blocking air flow around the fins. Depending on where you live and how much the AC runs, you may need to clean this yearly. The best way is to open up the entire case and then get in there with water degreaser and a toothbrush to get all the gunk out. Also, as Philip points out, that's a LOT Of BTUs for a very small space. If a unit is oversized, what will happen is that it will cool the space before it can dehumidify the space. So you end up with cold and damp...likely not something you want. I'd second Philip and just go spend a few hundred bucks on a small 8000 btu unit.Hello, did someone stick Dieter Rams' pocket radio in the window? No, it's a new air conditioner from GE and Quirky called the Aros.

David at LifeEdited calls out its features:© This is not an air conditioner. Dieter Rams Pocket Radio T3, 1958, MoMA collectionBeyond its good looks, what make the Aros unique is that it’s hooked up to the internet and can be controlled on your phone via an iOS or Android app. The app gives your phone full remote control of the AC and you can easily set timers for various times of the day for set schedules. moving an air conditioning unitIt also hooks up with your GPS to switch off when it detects you’re away from your AC. ac unit circuit diagramThe specs don't tell us much, other than it takes a lot of power at 15 amps, a Frigidaire Energy Star air conditioner for fifty bucks less draws 7.4 amps.1 and a half ton ac unit(I actually don't believe that 15 amps figure, they must mean the outlet needed.

If it's really the power needed then nobody should touch this thing) , It says it will cool 350 square feet, but much depends on exposure, size of windows, wall construction, but then people who buy window shakers don't usually do heat gain analyses. They just pull out those leaky wings and stick it in the wall, if the landlord or the condo board says they can. None of the key data, like noise levels or energy efficiency ratio, are published. There's no new AC tech like GE's new magnetic cooling fridge. Introducing Aros from Quirky on Vimeo.This is good. It does save energy turning the AC off during the day instead of leaving it on all the time; they work best going full speed, instead of turning on and off, and the bigger the DeltaT, the difference in temperature between the coil and the air, the more efficiently they work and the better they humidify. It tracks your usage so that you can save on energy costs. © Aros via AmazonBut it doesn't connect to the smart meters that most houses now have, so when everyone is coming home at the same time and everybody's Aros click on at once, the load on the grid spikes like mad.

Washing machines and water heaters are smart enough to do this, so that the utility can control it and slice some peak load off the top. It's the single most important thing that a smart air conditioner should be able to do, and it doesn't. © Comfort zone chart Victor OlyayAs Edward Olgyay noted fifty years ago, there are three factors that determine comfort, and temperature is only one; air movement and humidity matter too. There are many times of the year that one might just open the window to get cool; a breeze, a particularly nice dry day. A window shaker air conditioner reduces or eliminates the possibility of cross ventilation; the window is essentially sealed from any other use, so it gets used more.For sure, it is a better window shaker. The air flow is clever. The fact that it turns itself on and off according to occupancy is great. But it is still a window shaker, and they are still ugly outside, ruining the look of houses and buildings, blocking up windows and sometimes falling out and killing people.