Portable Air Conditioner – A Hose Or Two Hoses, This Is The Question Here
In the heat of the Summer, when you are caught in an apartment that has no air conditioning, or when your central air con has just died, buying a small portable air conditioner starts to make a lot of sense. But there are choices you need to make, so it is great that you are reading this. By the time you are finished reading, you will realize what risk you are taking on by purchasing a small, single hose portable air conditioner. Hose? Yes, you can either pick a single or a double hose portable ac unit. You will understand that buying a dual hose air conditioner makes a lot more sense even though it may be a bit more unsightly, and a bit more complicated to install. The reason to prefer a two hose, or dual hose portable air conditioner is operating efficiency. Let’s explore how this works.
How A Single Hose Portable Air Conditioner Works
The simplified principle of operation of a single hose AC unit is as follows:
The portable AC unit takes the energy from the warm air in the room and transfers that energy to the air that exits the room through the hose leading to the window.
Since some hot air has exited the room through the hose leading to the window, the air in the room must be replaced. There are openings in the walls, ducts, cracks and gaps in the windows and doors where the new air enters the room.
The new air is not cooled, but it needs to be cooled.
How A Single Hose Portable AC Unit Wastes Energy
The answer to this becomes simple if we consider the sequence of events above. The key point is “the new air needs to be cooled”. A single hose AC unit will constantly have a task of cooling the new incoming air into the room. And the harder it works, that is, the more hot air it blasts out through the window, the more new warm air will come into the room through cracks, gaps, etc. and will need to be cooled. Single hose portable air conditioner, efficient? Not at all.
Because of the constant need to cool down the new air, a single hose air conditioner becomes extremely energy inefficient. It may cool down the air a bit, but not by much, especially when the air outside is hot, which would normally be the case. If the air outside was cold, we didn’t need the air conditioner, we would just open the windows and doors and let that cold air in.