On Monday, June 23, 2014 9:29:13 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
A friend's air conditioning has failed and she doesn't have the money to

replace the compressor etc.



So she's looking at so-called portable AC One unit she saw looks nice,

has the right controls plus remote, but only has an output hose. One of

the laymen reviewing it makes that a deal breaker, that it doesnt have

an input hose also to the window.



Because this means it will suck hot air in from the outside, but that

won't be the same air expelled.



This makes sense to be but maybe it's not as bad as the reviewer makes

it sound. If hot air is sucked in through its own hose, the AC won't be

able to add as much heat to the hot air as it would to te room

temperature air, and that will lower the efficiency of the AC. It will

also lower its speed of heating the room it's in, although it will raise

to some extent the temperature of the rooms it's not in, depending on

where the outside air infittrates.



Normally she keeps the basement window (10 inhces high near the ceiling

of the basement) open all summer, and the other major place is the mail

slot in the front door. It has an inner metal flap and an outer metal

flap but no foam in either flapway. (Maybe if I looked at it some more,

I could figure out how to add foam that wouldn't either keep the mail

out or get knocked off by the income mail.) Also the weather stripping

in her laterallly open window probably won't work as well when she has

to open one window and one storm window for the hose output.



Do you think one hose AC is terrrible and should avoided at all cost?



I will definitely take a hit on efficiency because of the reasons you
cite. It takes cool house air, uses a blower to push it past the hot
coils and then out the house. That air is then replaced by hot outside
air coming into the house. How much that winds up costing her would
depend on how much she uses it, how much eff is lost, and what electric
rates are. And that would have to be compared to the cost difference of
a two hose one.