How to Set Up Portable Ac Without Window
Can you use a portable air conditioner in a windowless room? Of course you can. There are 5 ways how to vent a portable air conditioner without a window.
Portable air conditioners and though the window exhaust vents go hand-in-hand. In fact, more than 80% of people who buy a portable AC unit install the exhaust vent out of the window.
What is more, the out-the-window installation is so popular that many producers give you a free window seal kit for portable air conditioners.
However, in some situations venting your portable AC out of the window just isn't possible. Because of how well these AC units and windows go together, the question of 'How to vent a portable air conditioner without a window' doesn't seem to have a clear answer. At first.
What happens if you don't vent a portable AC unit?
It is impossible to use a portable air conditioner without a vent. You can turn it on and it will even run normally but it won't decrease the temperature of the room.
There are several ways of how to vent a portable AC unit even if you put it in a windowless room.
We'll present 5 ways how you can use a portable air conditioner without a window. Mind you, without a window, venting a portable air conditioner is more difficult (but not impossible).
In a windowless room, you can vent a portable AC through:
1. Vent A Portable AC Unit Through The Door (Bonus: Sliding Door)
There are windowless rooms but there are no doorless rooms. Every room has a door, and you can vent a portable air conditioner through the door. Using door venting is the most common way of venting a portable air conditioner without a window.
Obviously, it's important where those doors lead. If it leads to a hallway or another room, you might have difficulty getting the required temperature difference that would make the air conditioner effective.
If, on the other hand, you have a balcony door, you can vent an air conditioner directly outdoors.
Here's the best case:
Sliding doors. Sliding doors usually lead into an open air. Installing a sliding door seal is easy and you will have the required temperature difference that will make a portable AC unit as effective as if you would vent it through the window.
For ordinary doors, installing the 6 feet portable AC vent might be tricky. With a sliding casement door, installing the ventilation is easy with a sliding door vent kit.
These kits are designed to fit any sliding door dimensions (up to 150 inches), are about 6-8 inches wide. You install it on the window, fix the vent and you can vent a portable air conditioner without a window.
This works for pretty much all units. You can check the best portable air conditioners here.
2. Installing A Portable AC Vent Through The Wall
Like doors, every room has walls. Any portable air conditioner that cannot be vented through the window, can be vented through the wall.
Obviously, most rooms don't have 6-diameter holes in their walls. If you want to install an AC unit through the wall, you have to make a hole yourself.
If you're a DIY enthusiast and own a power drill, you can drill a hole in the wall. The diameter of the hole should be the same as the diameter of the hose that vents the portable air conditioners. Alternatively, you can install a through-the-wall air conditioner.
This method is more often used for single-hose portable air conditioners. Two-hose portable air conditioners are more energy-efficient but nobody really likes drilling too many holes in their walls.
Here's what you have to be careful about:
Prior to starting the drill, make sure to choose the right wall for the vent. Reinforced steel walls, for example, are a bad choice; only a professional can drill through them. Don't choose thicker walls. The best-case scenario for a windowless room is to vent a portable air conditioner through a thin wall made out of low-density concrete.
The most elegant solution, however, is a room that already has a hole for a vent in the wall. You might even be using it for laundry:
3. Vent PAC Through The Dryer Vent
There is literally no difference as far as dimensions go between a dryer vent and a portable air conditioner vent.
If you are using a dryer vent, you can use the same hole to install a hose and vent a portable air conditioner without a window.
In fact, most window seal kits for portable AC units you get can also be used to vent a dryer. What is more, venting a portable AC through a dryer vent is the most common advice AC producers give when asked 'I don't have a window, how can I vent a portable air conditioner?'.
The drawback with venting a portable AC through the dryer vent is that you're conditioning the air in the room with a dryer. And that's usually not a bedroom, living room, or any other room where you would need cooler air.
The 6 feet vent hose most portable air conditioners have is a limitation as well.
Advice: You can buy a longer hose. You can get a 20 feet hose, install it through the dryer vent hole, and connect it with the portable air conditioner placed in the hallway, or even the living room. This may decrease energy-efficiency (EER rating on specification sheets) but you will be able to vent a portable air conditioner without a window with ease.
4. Ceiling Venting (Most Commonly Used In Windowless Offices)
If you don't have a window but you have a drop ceiling, you can vent a portable air conditioner through the ceiling.
The drop ceiling is a requirement here. Most modern houses don't have them. A drop ceiling is found in high-ceiling older housing.
Ceiling venting is popular in offices. More often than not, offices have a drop ceiling that's not being utilized. Cubicle offices, for example, can heat up quite a bit during the summer. If the existing air conditioner system (usually central air conditioning) isn't sufficient, you can use a portable 10,000 BTU air conditioner, for example, and vent it through the ceiling.
To install the venting hose, you can use a specialized drop ceiling venting kit. These can extent the hose length by as much as 10 feet and are universal; they fit any portable air conditioner. Here's how venting a portable air conditioner through the drop ceiling looks like:
All in all, it's a neat solution for rooms without windows, albeit the whole vent setup doesn't look pretty.
5. Venting Through The Chimney (Seldomly Used)
Chimney venting is a less frequently used way to vent a portable air conditioner without a window. It does require quite a lot:
First it all, you have to have a chimney in your house. It has to be unused (during the summer it usually is).
Installing a hose through the chimney is quite tricky, to be honest. It would be best to talk to a professional in order to check off all the safety concerns. The installation will also require the use of a very long hose (at least the length of a chimney).
Chimney went is most often used for smaller cottages where the chimney length is minimal.
You Need To Be Crafty
Venting a portable air conditioner without a window is tricky. If you don't have sliding doors or if you're not prepared to drill a hole in the wall, you really need to get creative and crafty with how to set up venting.
Some DIY guys have their own special methods of how best to vent a portable AC. If you have your own way, you can share it with all of us in the comments below.
How to Set Up Portable Ac Without Window
Source: https://learnmetrics.com/how-to-vent-a-portable-air-conditioner-without-a-window/