On Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:02:19 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

In article . com,
Jules writes:
We had one at our previous house - I uncermoniously threw it in the shed
as it was power-hungry, and looked like a piece of crap :-)

They are very common this side of the Pond, however. I'm not sure if their
inefficiency is down to the majority of them being old (i.e. design has
improved over the years), the poor sealing between them and the window, or
the level that they tend to be mounted at (i.e window height; perhaps
floor-level or ceiling-level AC does better)

A good proportion of their cooling effect seems to be to countract
the hot mains lead and plug they all seem to have on the left side
of the pond. ;-)

Ha ha! :-)

8 or 9 years ago when self-install aircon didn't exist over here, a
friend bought one of the through window ones in Frys (USA) and carried
it back on a plane as excess luggage.

Eek. Those things (at least the old ones) are *heavy*!

They're very easy to find second-hand in the US (plenty on freecycle, too)
- I think folk are finally waking up to the fact that they're utter crap
and that opening a few windows / shutting curtains / using a fan to
move air around is just as effective (and a lot cheaper).

cheers

Jules