9 Best Window Air Conditioners | We spent 36 hours on research, videography, and editing, to review the top selections for this wiki. Make sure that your home is as comfortable as it can be all year round, with one of these window air conditioners. Designed specifically for use in apartments or rooms without access to a central air-conditioning system, these models include units that can also heat rooms when the temperature drops. Click here to see our #1 pick window mounting kit is included installation takes a long time digital display is easy to read instructions are a bit confusing dehumidifies up to 4.5 pints per hour it's on the pricey side cools rooms up to 1,600 square feet requires a 230-volt electrical outlet Friedrich EP12G33B Chill Series 3 cooling speed settings Friedrich SM15N10B Kuhl Series wi-fi control from a smartphone rubber motor mounts absorb vibrationsLG LW8014ER Energy Star 115-volt Air Conditioner

Yup, it's that time again. It started to get real hot in NYC these past few days and the talk in the office was all about buying an air conditioner to put in the window. How much should I pay? How do I keep it from drying out the room?? I surveyed the field and have three models to report back on to you as well as a handy chart that will help you choose the right size for each room. I also have some tips for you that I've found work well. , , and is also a #1 best seller on Amazon. Head below for more and tell me what you know... How To Choose An Air Conditioner I'm going to keep this simple and say: 1. Measure your room and get the one that is a size above the recommended size for your room in the chart below. This will take care of most sun and other heat issues. 2. Seal the heck out of it as any leakage around the unit will really suck the cool air right out of your room. 3. Avoid portable air conditioners. They've never worked for me and don't get high marks generally anywhere.

How big do you need? You need approximately 35 BTU's per square foot to cool a room with a normal ceiling (8-10'). So find your square footage and multiply by 35. If your room is 10' by 15' = 150 sq. ft. you multiply by 35 = 5250 approximately a 5000 BTU machine. How does it work? Air conditioners work in similar to that other cool appliance in your home, the refrigerator. Instead of cooling just the small, insulated space inside of a refrigerator, an air conditioner treats your whole room like a fridge cools it's interior. Here's the process broken down to the basics from HowStuffWorks: The compressor compresses cool Freon gas, causing it to become hot, high-pressure Freon gas (red in the diagram above). This hot gas runs through a set of coils so it can dissipate its heat, and it condenses into a liquid. The Freon liquid runs through an expansion valve, and in the process it evaporates to become cold, low-pressure Freon gas (light blue in the diagram above).

This cold gas runs through a set of coils that allow the gas to absorb heat and cool down the air inside the building.new motor for ac unit Frigidaire Energy Star 8,000 BTU 115V Mini-Compact Air Conditionertop five ac units Highly rated and a Frigidaire, which is one of the most popular brands sold, this particular unit is 8,000 BTU's and the top pick on The Sweet Home for a few years running.air handling unit Quickly cools a room up to 350 sq. ft. with dehumidification up to 1.7 pints per hour Clean air ionizer removes pollen and impurities from the air providing relief for allergy sufferers while fresh air vent/exhaust control removes odors Modes designed to save you energy and money include Auto Cool, Sleep and Energy Saver General Electric AEQ06LS Air Conditioner

Coming in first for GE and good for smaller rooms (up to 250 sq ft), this 6,150 BTU unit is small in scale, and has the standard remote with three cooling speeds. (Image credit: Nicolas & Fabienne's Quirky and Colorful London Home House Tour)How To Cool Down No Matter How Hot It Gets! Now that the high temps have really kicked in, it's hard to remember that this is the season everyone longs for during the darker, colder months of the year. If your home doesn't have AC (or you are choosing to leave it off as much as possible) you can feel stuck, especially when it comes to getting a restful nights sleep.. Go to Reader Intelligence ReportFive percent of America's electricity is used for residential air conditioning, and it is considered now to be a necessity, not a luxury. It's usually needed most when the sun is shining, so as I have noted since 2006, Solar Powered Air Conditioning Just Makes Sense. For most of that time I have been looking at absorption units that run like a propane fridge, but I recently mused that perhaps it is time for a change in the way we think about this:I am wondering if the solar powered air conditioner might not be in the end a small, high efficiency home with a small, high efficiency air conditioner powered by a big honking bank of photovoltaics

, and be done with it.I am not alone. Jamie Edens of Charleston, South Carolina read the post and wrote, telling me about his search for a solution to what he calls "the crux of our energy problem", all that coal that is being burned to generate the electricity to run that air conditioning. He also noted that there was a big movement everywhere to get off the grid, to stop paying so much money for electricity, but the real problem in doing so was the heavy load from air conditioning, and the poor efficiency of most units on the market.After hearing a story of how truckers had seriously efficient air conditioners that could run on batteries while they slept, he started hanging out in truck equipment shows and discovered Kingtec Technologies, a big manufacturer of direct current air conditioners for the trucking and RV market. After building a prototype that was a minor hit on YouTube, and with the help of a local Kingtec distributor, Edens convinced the company to build a unit to his specifications.

They started with very efficient 48 volt DC unit that puts out 16,000 BTUs at 850 watts, giving it an Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of 18.8. (Martin Holladay explains that EER is the cooling capacity of the appliance (in Btu/h) at an outdoor temperature of 95°F divided by the current draw of the appliance in watts.)They added a 45 amp solar charge controller and a 20 amp/hour battery as a buffer for when clouds block the sun. All you have to do is stick it in your window like a regular air conditioner, plug in a thousand watts of solar panels and it will run all day. Add more batteries or add a grid connection power supply and it will run all night. So for $2895 plus a thousand bucks worth of solar panels, you in business.Edens has been to China and played with the prototype. Comparing it to his prototype, he writes:The new air conditioner blow three times harder and has twice the BTU output. The efficiency are there and it is ready to change the world. It's not a toy- the beauty of this air conditioner is that all of the solar components are installed in the air conditioner and the engineering is done for you.

All you need to do is plug in your solar panels and turn the unit on.... Air conditioning doesn't need to burden to the grid, our finances and contribute to global pollution. It can contribute a new start to clean things up and sustain the earth for the long run. 16,000 BTUs is not comparable to a typical home air conditioning unit; it's a big window unit that might normally condition 600 square feet. But if you combine it with an equally efficient home, you might have something here. After I mused about a photovoltaic powered AC unit earlier I wrote Martin Holladay at Green Building Advisor for his thoughts and he replied:So, if you want to minimize your air conditioning bill, install low-solar-gain windows on your west (and perhaps east) walls, include wide roof overhangs, install deep attic insulation, minimize your air leakage, install an efficient air conditioner ... and then install PV, as much as you can afford. In other words, I agree with you.Jamie Edens and Kingtec have built a neat little package that runs on a lot less than my "big honking bank of photovoltaics";