Awl --

A'ight, so I got one of those portable ditties, for le shop, around 10,000
btu, single hose, as opposed to the more efficient dual hose. A few years
ago. Now the unit is flooding condensate.

Upon tearing this unit apart, it is clear that these units are *destined* to
fail in a shop, from dust.
Altho there is a ****ty filter on the cold air coil, there is no filter on
the condenser coil, which uses shop air to exhaust the heat, and thus can
get VERY dirty.
And indeed it was was.

It is VERY difficult to clean either of these coils properly, and even doing
the 60-75% job I did was no joke.
To properly clean the condenser coil would require *complete* disassembly of
the unit..... COMPLETE.
Which proly would not be so bad the second time around, but the FIRST time
around appears to be one helluva learning curve.

I seemed to be able to do a so-so job by blowing the fins *tangentially*, so
as not to jam the dirt/dust further into the fin structure.
And blew out the clog in the top drip pan.

All in all, a well-made unit, but with numerous fundamental design flaws,
such as this cleaning business, and clogging condensate holes, resulting in
flooding -- which is what in fact initiated this effort.
They really need to be used in clean, dust-free environments.

Two-hose units would present less of the dirty hot coil/condenser problem.
But, ultimately, all hot condensers coils seem to be difficult to clean,
it's just that it seems they take longer to get dirty -- except, of course,
for these single-hose units.

But here's the neat thermodynamic part:

A/C efficiency is ultimately limited by the outside air temperature, for a
traditional condenser coil that uses outside air to remove its heat.

However, with these portable units (single hose), it's the INSIDE air that
cools the condenser coils, which is in part why their EERs are so miserable.
BUT, it would appear that this miserable EER cannot be made any MORE
miserable by very high outside temps, since those temps no longer come into
contact with any coil of the unit. !!!

I wonder if there are some circumstances where this arrangement could
actually be an *advantage*??
Mebbe in 195 F climates??

--
EA