For some background, you probably know that the AC works by sucking in air and then outputting one stream that's hotter and one stream that's colder. The cold air is blown into the room and the hot air is ventilated out the hose. The problem now is, that the hot air you blow out of the room creates a vacuum and in turn sucks in hot air from the outside. So you constantly take some of the nice cool air of your room and heat it up and blow it out of the building. The dual hose setup instead takes air from outside for the heating up part.
The dual-hose setup should go in tandem with a well isolated window insert. For my mod, I simply taped a cardboard box to the inlet side of the AC unit and created a second opening into the polycarbonate plate covering the window opening.
> Did you manage to get an improvement of efficiency?
Yes, definately. I didn't do any scientific measurement, but after the mod, my workspace did get a lot cooler than before.
> What model of A/C were you using ?
De Longhi Pinguino PAC N81
It probably helps quite a bit, especially when a lot hotter outside than in. (But that's often not the case where I live south of Seattle.) But when I move to IL, I'm thinking mini-split is much easier solution for 1-2 room apt.
not op but was in same situation for few years as in my region A/C is somehow luxury and a lot of landlords don't mount them.
the issue with portable A/C is that most of the units needs to stay inside apartment, the cooling happens by compression/decompression of coolant, which produces heat and cold. so the A/C unit is producing additional heat that it needs to chill, which makes it inefficient. also these units are loud as fuck, most of them above 65dB.
so if you are in need, look for units that have the ability to channel cold air to the house from outside. otherwise you should always avoid portable A/C as it is really inefficient.
For some background, you probably know that the AC works by sucking in air and then outputting one stream that's hotter and one stream that's colder. The cold air is blown into the room and the hot air is ventilated out the hose. The problem now is, that the hot air you blow out of the room creates a vacuum and in turn sucks in hot air from the outside. So you constantly take some of the nice cool air of your room and heat it up and blow it out of the building. The dual hose setup instead takes air from outside for the heating up part.
The dual-hose setup should go in tandem with a well isolated window insert. For my mod, I simply taped a cardboard box to the inlet side of the AC unit and created a second opening into the polycarbonate plate covering the window opening.
> Did you manage to get an improvement of efficiency?
Yes, definately. I didn't do any scientific measurement, but after the mod, my workspace did get a lot cooler than before.
> What model of A/C were you using ? De Longhi Pinguino PAC N81