Product Description

The Koldfront 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner (model PAC8000S) is an ultra compact portable air conditioner that delivers a frigid blast of cold air and fits in almost any space. This compact portable air conditioner is capable of cooling up to a 225 square foot room and offers a three speed fan function and a dehumidifying function. The PAC8000S Portable Air Conditioner is our value choice pick - For those that are looking for a great price but don't want to sacrifice quality or features in their purchasing decision. This portable air conditioner also has an adjustable 24 hour timer, so you can set it and forget it. This is a great unit for situations in which you need a stylish unit that provides powerful cooling and versatile operation. Another great feature of this portable air conditioner is that it is an environmental friendly unit - It meets new RoHS standards. RoHS, also known as the lead-free directive, stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances. The goal of RoHS is to restrict the amount of certain toxins in electronic and electrical equipment such as lead, mercury, and cadmium. This restriction lessens the harmful impact these toxins can have on the environment and allows for the safer disposal and recycling of electronics and electrical equipment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82042 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Koldfront
• Model: PAC8000S

Features

• Ultra Compact Design- At just over 2 feet high, this portable air conditoner fits almost any space and is even easier to store.
• Energy Saving Design - Use the digital thermostat and 24 hour timer to save on your energy costs by setting this unit to run only when you need to stay cool.
• Year Round Versatility: Use this unit year-round to dehumidify your area when air conditioning is not required
• Environmentally Friendly: Meets RoHS Standards - This directive currently being enforced in the European Union requires electronic products to restrict the amount of harmul toxins such as lead and mercury
• Self-Evaporative System- This PAC8000S offers a auto drain exhaust system that essentially eliminates the need to empty any water from the unit.

Customer Reviews

Nice air, yummy air.
How does one go about reviewing an air conditioner?
Well............
It looks nice, it's sleek and sexy.
Hmmmmmm.....
The pros?
It's cheap, it's easy to put together, it comes with a remote,the display is very easy to read.
It's an air conditioner, dehumidifier, and fan all in one.
Most importantly.........IT WORKS!!!
I live in an apartment and there is a wall air conditioner in the living room.
That's nice but it does NOTHING for the bedroom which is like a blast furnace during summer.
This little air conditioner cooled my room off in no time.
The window kit is easy to put in, I have slider windows.
If you have casement windows you'll have to find some way to improvise.

The cons?
The instructions are kind of crappy.
I hate drawn diagrams.
The little tube thingy that snaps in the back of the unit was anything but easy to get in, but after some cramming it went in.

All in all.........I LOVE IT.
It's cute, it's little, it was delivered VERY quickly.
And most importantly...........IT WORKS.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Decent for small rooms
We just had a record-breaking heat wave. I live in a poorly-insulated house that becomes hot in 85-degree weather, and we hit 100. (Just north of Seattle, WA.) This A/C did a great job of cooling two small rooms (cool one room, move the A/C to another room, cool that one, then back again, for about a week).

Some observations:
1. You MUST vent a portable A/C out a window or into a drop-ceiling, or you just pump the hot air back into the room.
2. Portables seem to work better when elevated (hot air rises, so this helps keep the "convection effect" going by getting closer to the hot air).
3. It's a little noisy. Adding rubber gasket material to the vents reduces the noise a lot by damping the vibrations.
4. An A/C's BTU rating must match the room size, or the unit simply won't work right. This is true of all A/Cs, and seems to be somewhat critical for portables.
5. It acts as a dehumidifier, which means that you have to drain the water tank regularly or the unit will shut off until you do. (An indicator light tells you when you need to drain the tank.)

So, for those who need to cool small rooms, I think this is a good buy. It has been for me.

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Follow-Up on Aug 28, 2009:
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I just put the a/c into the garage to store until next year. This thing worked beautifully in the small rooms, but I didn't try it in any of the larger rooms.

What you need to know about Portable Air Conditioners before you buy
Hello everyone!

Portable air conditioners work by taking the air from your room, cooling it, and blowing the hot air out through an exhaust hose attached to your window.

But blowing hot air to the outside creates negative pressure inside your room which, in turn, pulls in more hot air from the outside (the amount of air blown out is equal to the amount of air pulled in). It is kind of self defeating.

The portable air conditioner is able to cool your room as long as the air it exhausts is hotter than the hot air pulled in, then there is an overall cooling effect. But as the temperature outside increas, a small A/C unit may not have enough BTU to to cool the air enough to compensate the hot air being sucked in.

I made the mistake of using a traditional web based cooling calculator to estimate the amount of BTU's needed for a portable A/C. If I had read the web page more carefully I would have noticed that these BTU calculators are for window/wall mounted air conditioners. The major difference between a window A/C and a portable A/C is that the window unit has its heat exchange coils outside and does not create negative pressure in your room (in other words, the cold air in the room is not directly diluted by warm air being sucked in from the outside). Without the negative pressure, there is no hot air being pulled in, so the amount of BTUs needed to cool the room is much less. Of course, even with a window A/C, warm air still seeps into the room but at a lower rate.

I estimate that I would need at least 50% more BTU in a portable air conditioner than that shown in web based BTU calculator for my needs. So instead of the 8,000 BTU Koldfront unit, I should have gotten a 12,000 BTU portable air conditioner.

Note: some portables A/C have two hoses, one for the exhaust and one for the intake so they do not create negative pressure. These units are more effecient and the web based BTU calculator should apply.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. Unless you have a two hose model (which maintains neutral pressure in your room), these portable A/C units are inefficient and are more costly to operate than a conventional through the wall/window air conditioner.

2. If you can, try to get a two hose portable A/C unit. But if not, then you will probably need to increase the portable's BTUs by 50% (or 1.5x) when using a conventional web based BTU calculator. CompactAppliance tried to warn me but I didn't listen. What did you expect from a 13yr old? :-).

3. Do buy from a reputable dealer, such as CompactAppliance. They graciously accepted my return without any hassles. Be sure you always read the vendor's return policy (some have reasonable restocking fees but some won't take it back at all!)

I hope this was helpful.