Air Conditioner For Dorm Room
Finding The Best Dorm Room Air Conditioner
A couple of characteristics of a dorm room: It is small. It is often shared. It needs to be used for study (where being cool and comfortable is high on the priorities list). It can be changed from semester to semester (since the dorm authority likes to move everyone out at the end of the semester).
These are the conditions for which a suitable air conditioner must be found. Plus, the air conditioner can't exceed the student's budget!
What To Look For In The Best Dorm Room Air Conditioner?
Couple of things are important. The air conditioner must be small in terms of cooling power. This will make it physically smaller too. Incidentally, the AC being small will also take care of the ease of installation (and reinstallation in the next room next year), it will take care of the cost, and it will take care of the price too.
There are two types of air conditioner for dorm room that fulfill the requirements, a portable air conditioner and a window air conditioner.
The advantage of the portable air conditioner is that you can more easily move it from room to another room when you don't need it or when you are moving into another dorm. You need to be careful to look for dual hose portable air conditioners; single hose portable air conditioners won't be as effective or efficient in cooling your room on the hottest of days.
The advantage of a window air conditoner is that it is generally significantly less expensive and that, when installed properly, will be more effectively cooling the room and taking up less room space. We will present two excellent affordable alternatives here.
Two Excellent Alternatives For Air Conditioner For A Dorm Room
1. Window Air Conditioner - Frigidaire FRA054XT7 5,000 BTU Window-Mounted Mini Room Air Conditioner
The Frigidaire FRA054XT7 is a small window air conditioner capable of cooling spaces up to 150 square feet or so. It has the amenities of a modern window air conditioner - digital on-the-unit controls for fan speeds, cooling power, sleep and timer function, and more. It has been reviewed well and the buyers love the quiet operation, ease of install into the window, and just how quickly it can cool a small space down to a comfortable temperature. Also, price-wise, this is the least expensive window air conditioner you can find that has digital controls. If you want to save a few more dollars and can forgo digital controls and the remote, you can check out its sibling, FRA052XT7 which has received numerous buyers praises and uses mechanical rotary controls on the units dash.
2. Portable Air Conditioner - Whynter 12,000 BTU Dual Hose Portable Air Conditioner
You will certainly need to pay a bit more for the portable air conditioner, due to its flexibility. Plus, some dorms simply do not allow you to install window air conditioners since they might cause a hazard or may spoil the look of the outside of the building. So you have little choice but go for a portable air conditioner.
A big caveat - even to this day, a lot of people get burnt buying a single-hose or even no-hose portable air conditioner. While such a device might be okay for sending cold air out into one direction, it will do little to nothing to cool the room, especially if the room is not adjacent to other spaces that are also cooled. Why? Because a single-hose portable air conditioner will suck air from the surrounding spaces, and, if these are hot, the hot air will mix with the cooler air inside the room, thereby reducing the overall cooling.
Do not buy a single hose or no-hose portable air conditioner!
Back to Whynter 12,000 BTU Dual Hose Portable Air Conditioner ARC-12SD . This unit is a dual hose, which should provide for effective and fast cooling. This portable air conditioner has received accolades from happy buyers for its speed of cooling, for quiet operation even on the maximum cooling setting, for its relatively small size and portability thanks to the attached wheels, and for the ease of setup.
Which Dorm Air Conditioner To Choose And Why?
If at all practical and allowed, the window air conditioner is less expensive, and takes up less space in the already smallish dorm room. If allowed, we would recommend going with the Frigidaire FRA054XT7 5,000 BTU Window-Mounted Mini Room Air Conditioner . When placing a window air conditioner is impractical, either because of the management requirements, or because of the inconveniently placed or small size windows, then the solid alternative becomes a more expensive portable air conditioner. Just make sure you pick a dual hose model such as the Whynter 12,000 BTU Dual Hose Portable Air Conditioner .
FILED TO: NON WINDOW AIR CONDITIONER; ROOM AIR CONDITIONER NO WINDOW TAGGED: AIR CONDITIONER FOR DORM ROOM; DORM ROOM AIR CONDITIONER
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