NewAir AC-12000E 12,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

I have a condo on the third floor with a cathedral ceiling. Of course, in the summer it is torture. My used unit died, so I purchased this and had it delivered next day. It is much shorter than my previous unit, but more powerful than the Royal Sovereign 3010 that I owned before. (It was about five years old.) This small unit has lots of punch, but there are a few things you should consider.First, it's extremely heavy. 80 pounds to be exact and the delivery person (company will remain unnamed) didn't want to haul it up the stairs. After bemoaning the fact I had no one to help me, he finally brought it up with much difficulty. Remember you'll need two people to carry it up stairs safely. The unit was well packed and installation simple.Second, the opening that sends out the cool air is about one-fourth the size of my previous unit. It does a good job of pushing out the cool, but the small area does prevent a larger mass of air exiting into the room. Also, because it is much shorter than my other one, I had to rearrange my furniture and move my couch that sat right next to it obstructing the flow of air. I didn't have that problem with the taller unit before.Third, it rattles a bit. I keep trying to level it to get rid of the rattle, but my carpeting is making it difficult. I need to work on that matter, but when I get it situated correctly, the rattle does stop.Fourth, my condo is plumbed with an exit for an indoor AC. The attachment from the back to the outlet worked fine (I already had the correct size ending). The tube is five inches - my outlet in the wall is four inches. As far as I pushed the tube into the unit to attach it, it still did have some air leakage. After purchasing some white duct tape and doing a once-around at both ends, it cured the escape of hot air.As far as cooling ability, my living room, kitchen, and dining are connect in a L-shape. It adequately cools the LR and kitchen for the most part, but you can tell when walking through the dining area around the corner, that's about as far as it goes. I've rectified that situation with a big box fan to blow the cool air down the hallway to my two bedrooms. It helps, the AC is by no means big enough to cool a 1,200 square foot condo. Since I sit in the living room and watch TV, at least I can do so now without sweating.It's fine for what I need on a day above 80 degrees. If it gets any hotter than 95 or above outdoors, the unit runs continually and won't cool the area to less than 85 degrees.. We have had a stretch of extremely hot weather recently of 95 to 100 every day for nearly two weeks. Frankly, I'm roasting even with the unit. I might drag this into my bedroom and purchase another unit with more BTUs for the living area.

This was my first portable AC unit. It works great and cools the room very quickly (my old window unit did not). It is a heat pump, so there is only one vent to the outside, so...cooler outside air is of no assist at all in helping cool the unit and boost efficiency.It's only real problems would be as follows:The noise...but that is to be expected from moving such a large volume of air (but I wish it had one more lower fan setting, I never use the high setting). Its as loud as those units found in many motel rooms. NOTE: If you want a quiet portable AC unit I recommend the Honeywell MN10CESWW 10,000 BTU AC (may no longer be available ) but this is:  Honeywell MN12CES 12,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner with Remote Control - Black/Silver  Because of this I have set this Newair unit at 4 stars and the Honeywell at 5 stars.The vent hose is very sturdy and rigid and can be insulated if necessary (You can purchase a $12 mattress pad, cut it to fit the length of the pipe and wrap it around using GE silicone to glue it together.). The compressor is 60% of the noise of the unit, which is noticeable when the set temperature is met and the compressor shuts down. If you want to hear a TV over the noise be prepared to crank up your volume.The second problem is that a single vent out the window creates a vacuum in the house and the room...so it will be drawing in hot air through every vent crevice and pore of your house (I crack open the top of a window in another room as fresh the air intake). This venting can be an advantage for people like me who find air conditioned air stifling no matter how cool the room is, so I actually like that it is drawing in fresh air from outside and keeping the stale air condition at a minimum. Its definitely better air quality than a window unit.The unit being a China unit (likely sold domestically in great numbers), has no instructions on operation, but most of it is intuitive. Some of the features are standard sleep timer, auto mode (sets the fan speed), and fan only.One thing you will notice is that the unit has a plastic/Styrofoam smell when its new. Its interior is insulated with high density Styrofoam. The smell has been fading at a steady pace for the past month. I expect that this will dissipate totally in a few months.Features:The ionizer button seems useless, but my air quality isn't a thick gumbo of toxicity and soot like China's air (but who knows air quality does drop when the heat goes up).The sleep time is good and sets one hour of operation for each push...and then will run for that amount of hours and then shut off.It is a very small unit...much smaller than cheaper units you see in the retail stores. This was important for me as I plan on storing it in a closet for most of the year. Its about 3 ft high and 1.5 ft square.It has many washable filters that slide out of the units intake ports, but because its interior air they stay clean.So far I have not had to drain the condensation from the pan, because the unit uses this water to cool the compressor and then vents the humidity out the vent.Overall its a very good unit, and I hope it lasts for a long time.For heating and cooling version of this heat-pump reference the AC-12000H.UPDATE July 2012: Unit has lost all of it's Styrofoam smell. I have found that it works better at cooling a larger space than my 15 by 15 foot bedroom (the air gets a little too conditioned - see above). It continues to work very well, but will struggle to cool my large space of 15 by 45 feet when temps are above 90 degrees F.

I can't even overstate what a piece of garbage this thing is. I read plenty of mostly positive reviews. Like how it was reasonably quiet, simple to install, suitable for relatively large areas, etc. I'm now convinced that every one of those reviews was written by the machine's designer.~This thing is only quiet if you're sitting in the house across the street. MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS actually commented on it! It rumbles so much it actually shakes the entire floor level it's located on. A 20 year old window unit elsewhere in the house literally makes less than a quarter the noise.~And sure it's simple to install, unless of course your window wasn't specifically designed for this half-witted window mount. I mean come on! The freaking hose is cheap plastic sure, but it does compress! So it's not like the window mount couldn't have been designed to do something similar. I could draw something out for you in 3 minutes that would work better! And I can't even draw!~And then there's the sq. footage. What was it recommended for? 400 square feet? That was the single most overwhelmingly BS statement I saw regarding this unit. And for anyone who wants to say I don't understand what this type of unit is for, let me say this; I'm sitting in a 9x9 room. 9x9. Less than a hundred square feet. It says "Air Conditioner". Therefor IT SHOULD TAKE LESS THAN AN HOUR AND A HALF TO GO DOWN 5 DEGREES!!!!The only reason I'm not returning this thing is that it still works better than my car ac. So I'm used to making due with a glorified ($430) fan. That, plus the foam mess created when I unpacked it in the first place. I have no interest in going through that again any time soon.