Whynter ARC-12SDH 12,000 BTU (6,884 BTU SACC) Dual Hose Cooling Portable Air Conditioner, Heater, Dehumidifier, and Fan with Storage Bag, Up To 400 sq ft in White

After extensive research, reading customer reviews, professional reviews and pricing at my local appliance stores, I broke down and bought two of these units, 2 weeks apart. My son and I moved in with the elderly 'rents to look after them. They keep the central AC at 80 and watch TV with wool caps, slippers and lap blankets... yes, in the middle of the Florida summer! To say the least my son and I were sweatin' it out at night. I got only one portable AC (PAC) at first because of some of the negative reviews, large investment on something I wasn't too sure was going to work well for us, problems with the drainage, etc... I didn't want to invest in two, if one didn't work. The room I am cooling is approx. 12x 12. I probably got too much in the BTU department, but I wanted to be sure that it would do the job. It ABSOLUTELY DOES THE JOB AND THEN SOME! I did get the second one.The PAC came in a large box, packaged well. Easy to disassemble, box was taken away by recycling. All good. My brother-in-law set the PAC in my bedroom. I only have a sliding glass door to work with, so he needed to do some modifications and adjustments. All of the parts were in the box and easily assembled. Follow the directions (and pictures) and all should match up well.I went to Home Depot, purchased a 4' x 8' piece of AC insulation board (foam in the middle and covered with silver foil on the outside...cuts easily with a utility knife), a roll of AC duct tape (not duct tape, but the kind that is foil and used for AC duct work), 2 packages of 1" x 1" foam weather stripping, and 3 feet of 1/2" diameter tubing. ($30-$40 all together). The tools that my brother in law used were a drill to make a 1/2 inch hole in the insulation board, a utility knife, and a measuring tape.I'll tell you how he put it together and the reasons for doing it the way he did... after all, he is a clever guy and he saw a design flaw here or there...First, he measured how wide he would need the insulation board to be. Remember, it went into a sliding glass door, which would render the slider useless, once the PAC was installed. (I didn't care, I NEEDED the AC). He cut the insulation board 4" wider than the width of the plastic window kit (comes with the unit, has 2 holes to attach the duct hoses). Of course, the height of this piece has to fit into the door. Next, he decided where he wanted to put the plastic window kit in the insulation board. He centered the plastic window kit vertically and pressed it into the insulation board to leave an imprint in the board. He used the utility knife, followed the straight lines of the impression, to cut out the shape of the plastic window kit. He used the AC duct tape to tape the window kit into the insulation board, front and back. He next taped this, (the piece of insulation board with the plastic window kit taped into it) into place in the door jamb/frame of the slider. All taped in. It doesn't look pretty, or it looks as good as it can for being what it is, but it certainly is functional. He then attached the exhaust hose to one of the round circles (4" hole on the plastic window kit) and put one of the caps (provided) on the other. ***HERE IS WHERE HE THINKS THERE IS A DESIGN FLAW, AND WHY HE DID NOT ATTACH THE SECOND HOSE TO THE SECOND HOLE. The directions and the whole idea of the DUAL HOSE SYSTEM is to blow out the hot exhaust through one of the hoses and then to draw in cool air, from outside, through the other hose. This is the problem with this idea (according to my brother in law): "THE TWO HOSES, WHEN CONNECTED TO THE WINDOW KIT, ARE ONLY 1 1/2"-2 " APART. HE DOESN'T BELIEVE IT'S POSSIBLE TO DRAW IN "COOL" AIR FROM THE OUTSIDE FOR TWO REASONS: IT'S HOT OUTSIDE, HENCE THE NEED OF THE AC AND BECAUSE THE INTAKE IS GOING TO 'SUCK' THE HOT AIR IN FROM THE EXHAUST BECAUSE IT'S TOO CLOSE TO THE INTAKE." So, the intake hose is attached to the unit, but not to the vent hole. It's simply leaning up against the door, out of the way, sucking in the cooled air from inside the room.When I explained what I was doing to the Home Depot guy, he reminded me that once that sliding glass door was opened a few inches, there would be a gap between the two doors... in the middle, if you will. Simple solution was to stuff the foam weather stripping in there! Done.I was concerned about the drainage issues... Florida is HUMID! I read on some reviews that the unit would shut down in the middle of the night because the drip pan was full... Again, my brother in law to the rescue!!!He removed the plug, drilled a hole in the insulation board at the same level or height of the drain. He attached the tubing to the drain on the unit, and threaded it out through the insulation board to the outside. Problem solved!After he installed the unit, I noticed that there were tiny little gaps in the plastic window kit, around the circles... I could see light shining through. I ran a bead of caulk around it. No more light, no air escaping and no ants getting in.I turn the PAC off when I'm not home. Remember, the central AC is set at 80 degrees and the outside temperature, at this time of year, during the day is between 90 and 95. When I return, I turn the PAC on and set it at 74. Within 15 minutes, the room is cooled down to 74. (I have a separate thermometer and wanted to make sure that it was cooling to what I had it set at.) As I type right now, my fingers and toes are cold! I'm comfortable... I might even have to turn it a little warmer!Some reviews mentioned that it is a loud unit.... I don't agree... it is no louder than a window shaker!I would definitely recommend this unit. So far, so good! It's only been three weeks, but I am optimistic that it will continue to work well.(I waited 10 days or so to order one for my son and he, too, is now comfortable in his room. It's about the same size as mine.)

This unit was purchased for an 18x12 room with basement size/type windows on an upper floor that also has no heat.The unit cools the room.The unit doesn't seem any louder than any other air conditioner I've encountered.The window kit was easily cut down to fit, and installation was easy.That said, this unit is a pain in the you-know-what and if I had any other options I'd be pursuing them.There's a five degree variation before the unit turns on. So if you have it set to 72, the room can be 77 before it turns on. So if you're a cold-blooded ice monster like me, to keep the room cool enough, the unit has to be set colder than you actually want it.The lights on the display are not only ridiculously bright, they are also bright blue. Blue lights are the most disruptive to sleep, and when I say the lights are bright, I mean if I sat close enough to the unit I could read a book. I used a piece of the window kit and some duct tape to cover the display, and the light still comes through.The book says the unit "might" collect some water while cooling. Almost makes it sound like this is not a common occurrence. Without exaggerating, the unit only runs 3 to 4 hours without needing to be emptied. I am in Maine and the last couple days it's been in the upper 80's with humidity in the low 30's and dew point in the mid-to-low 50's. The unit ran from 2130 to 0030 last night, and then from about 0830 this morning and shut off just before 1 because it was full of water.Not only does it need to be emptied practically constantly, the drain is not even a full inch off the floor. The instructions say to put a "flat pan" under the unit to catch the water. A paint tray is too tall, the only thing going under that unit is a cookie sheet (probably best if one with sides is used). I have mine up on a set of 4x4s right now so I can drain it, but in the interest of not having to babysit the stupid thing constantly, I will most likely find something to lift it onto so the water can drain into a bucket. This will, of course, render the casters useless.In addition to the above, whatever the water collects in inside the unit is not closed. So if the unit has shut off because it's full of water, and you're trying to get a reasonably sized container underneath the unit to drain it, the water will spill. Everywhere. Ah ha! You're thinking. I'll just get a hose and drain it that way! Unfortunately, grasshopper, only gravity is emptying that tank.And finally, the best bit of ridiculousness, when the unit is sitting level, all the water won't drain out. To get all the water out the unit has to be tipped backward to completely drain.I don't know if all portable air conditioners are this "difficult," but this one certainly is. I do not recommend, especially for the price.Update 07/02/2016: Put the unit up on a series of blocks to make draining it easier because it was shutting off so frequently. In the 24 hours after it was raised I got about a quart of water out of it, and haven't gotten a drop of water out of it since. Was it possibly because the unit was new? The world may never know. If it stays dry I will probably come back and update my review and give it a higher rating.Update 08/06/16 - I officially hate this unit. I have a 5 qt pot that needs to be emptied every 4 to 6 hours (7 to 8 if I'm lucky) because this thing produces So. Much. Water. On the plus side, my cats enjoy drinking the collected water and I have one very clean spot on the floor when the pot overflows. On the minus side is everything else. I am going to need a 5 gallon bucket under this thing if I want to only empty it once a day instead of 2 to 3 times a day. The room is cool, but I don't know if the work to keep it running is worth it. Under current conditions with the drain plug in it shuts off after two hours because it's full of water, with a loud and annoying beep before it does (to make sure you wake up to know it needs to be emptied).Update 12/16/16: This was purchased specifically because it has the heating option. Unfortunately the thing has stopped working less than a year after I purchased it. At the tail end of summer when I managed to build a frame to support the unit so it would then gravity drain into a bucket, the A/C went wonky on it and would only run at specific fan speeds. There was a period in between when I needed A/C and when I decided it was cold enough to need the heat (during which time it sat, plugged in, and off in an upright position) and the heat will kick on for approximately a minute (if it kicks on at all) and then shuts off. Huge, HUGE waste of money. I will be contacting the manufacturer and wasting my time there to see if it's under some sort of warranty that they'll find a way to not honor, but I am not holding my breath.