Frigidaire FRA053PU1 5,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner

I live in a first floor apartment in Philadelphia...so there are bars on all of our windows. Our place does not have central air and with this summer being so hot and humid for weeks we needed a way to stay cool. We couldn't go with a window unit; there wasn't enough room for a unit to fit in the window with the bars. So we decided to give this unit a try, with it being the least expensive of the "portable air conditioners". The installation is a little tricky and can be frustrating if it's hot and humid in the room and you just want this thing to blow cold air in your face! So this unit comes with a sliding extendable plastic "vent" that sits in the lower half of the window that has the hole where it vents out the hot air from the tubing. Getting it into the window isn't the frustrating part, it's getting it to fit into the window. It comes in 2 parts (the extendable part) so that it can fit larger windows. HOWEVER, if you have a narrow window the extendable part is too long for it to fit in the window and still leave enough room for the hole that vents. What we ended up doing is installing the main part of the window vent and then we cut the box it came in (I know, not the best seal) and covered it with duct tape to cover the few inches that were left open. After we screwed everything in we duct taped the whole thing to keep it air tight. After you battle getting to fit into the window properly and seal it so that no hot air can get in this thing really cools down the room! Some reviews said this didn't work...I'm assuming they had trouble installing and didn't seal the window completely and therefore hot air was still able to come in. They don't give you the proper amount of "tools" to completely seal the window so please make sure you have duct tape available! Also, this isn't meant for larger rooms! If you have a larger room try going with a higher BTU unit. They are more powerful and have a larger room range for cooling. In the middle of this past summer it wouldn't get lower than 80 degrees at night in Center City Philadelphia and this saved us from melting while we sleep! It cools our bedroom within 30 mins and keeps it cool! People were complaining about it being loud, I didn't find that to be a problem but then again after living in the city you get used to sleeping with noise. I wouldn't really consider this "portable" however. I would call it "an air conditioning unit that sits on the floor". The hose that it comes with is long enough that you can move it a few feet from the window but you can't exactly move it from room to room with ease since you need to screw in the window part for ventilation. Also, the filter that's located in the back can be easily cleaned...just take the backing off and use a the hose attachment of your vacuum cleaner to get the dust out. When it needs to be cleaned the orange filter light comes on. And as a side note, you need to turn the light off manually after cleaning. And lastly with the draining...the unit is only supposed to be drained when moving the unit from the window. We will most likely drain it when we take it out and put it away for the winter. I think of it when you unplug a small mini-fridge. Some tend to leak from the back once unplugged and causes water to go everywhere. This has a built in drain so that once moved water doesn't go everywhere. On the whole this unit works great and keeps our bedroom cool. The remote works well and is convenient to control from the bed. It does take up a decent amount of floor space so make sure to clear a spot. I would highly recommend to anyone that can't use a window AC unit and would still like the convenience of air conditioning!

Cold air comes out, but it stays on for hours when set to 70. The lowest I can get it to go is 73 and that means it's shutting off and back on every 10 minutes and the room's ambient temperature is roughly 75. The room is around 140 sq ft so it should not be having these problems. When it comes on it creates a strong negative pressure, pulling any air from leaks in your window or from the door including any pollen or smells. When it's just the fan it's a fairly normal sound level, nothing loud. But as soon as the air comes on it turns into turbine mode louder than the "high" setting. It's impossible to sleep with it on, you're either startled by the loud noise or the lack of any every 10-15 minutes. It just doesn't do the job I bought it for and it causes disturbances in the meantime. The $99 window unit from Walmart I had previously lasted for roughly 3 years and could get a 200 sq ft room down to 67 with no problems.

6/4/12 (original review):I am very pleased that I splurged a little and finally went with a legitimate AC unit for my apartment's bedroom (still can't figure out why every 1BR complex puts the wall unit in the living room and not the bedroom, anyway, i digress).How I use it:I have a single, large bedroom window that opens up by sliding horizontally. This makes using your standard window AC unit essentially impossible, unless I want to jimmy rig some gaudy seal contraption to cover the huge gap at the top. This Frigidaire unit has a sliding window pain that extends further than even I expected, and covers the whole window opening. Foam pane sealer strips are provided to plug the gaps around the window frame and the AC pane, but as others have mentioned, you might need some extra materials to truly seal the window.Connecting the hose to the unit and the window pane is easy enough, and the connection is pretty darn secure (hint: connect the hose to the unit and window pane before installing the window pane, much easier). The air hose is quality and I don't worry about it ripping/tearing when moving the unit around (it's designed to be pretty malleable).The remote control is great to have as well. It's also the only way (that I could find) to set the unit to degress as the unit itself came preset using celsius (darn commies). Once I set the temperature to my desired setting on the remote in degrees, the unit's display switched over to American temperatures.As it hasn't hit the true hot summer nights yet, this guy really hasn't been fully tested. But so far so good. And I will make sure to update this review as the summer progresses and I learn what $279.99 buys in the AC world.7/1/12 (Update after a several day 90+ heat wave):The unit does keep my bedroom decently cool. On these ridiculously hot 90+ days, it does take a while to cool down my bedroom (it's a larger bedroom - 12x16), and it never gets below the low 70s when it's this hot out, but it works great on the 80 degree days/nights and can usually get into the 60s when its under 80 at night. It's not as good as the true window ACs I've used over the years, but it's better than just a fan or crashing on the couch since that's where the main AC unit resides. It's not cheap, but it's been worth it so far.