8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - Koldfront
by Koldfront
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Product Summary
Manufacturer: KoldfrontBrand: Koldfront
Model: PAC8000S
Product 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.
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - Koldfront
Customer Review: Only option that would fit - and it works
Summary: 4 Stars
PROS
about as small and light (50lbs) as they get
comes with remote
comes with window kit
powerful fan
thermostat
very little assembly/packaging
CONS
no accessible drain pan
machine itself only had power button (no controls)
loud
OVERVIEW
I live in a 300sq foot studio with a 15 foot ceiling and a south-facing bay window. My apartment gets hot when it's sunny and is almost always damp/humid. I got the Koldfront because it was the only unit that would fit in my available surface area: on top of my kitchen cabinets. I already had ducting running through my cabinets to vent my over-range microwave, so I popped the Koldfront on top of my cabinet and tied the exhaust into my existing duct work.
It takes the Koldfront about 5-7 minutes to cool my apartment down to habitable from digustingly hot. Technically, I think my space is supposed to be a little too big for this machine, but having it blow cold air across my ceiling seems to do a good job of displacing all the hot air, and since it's located high up, it should be sucking warm air out as it cools the condensers.
I ran this machine for a couple of days at ground level and was less than excited about it's potential, I could actually feel a temperature differential about two feet off the ground between cold and hot air. But moving it closer to my ceiling made all the difference. When it was on the floor, all it did was move air and maybe cool a little bit. Now that it's at ceiling height I'm actually getting chilly.
FAN SPEED
There are three fan speeds: high is pretty loud, and low is still relatively loud. I've gotten used to it pretty quickly though, it pretty much acts as white noise, dampening external sounds.
MODES
AC, Dehumidifier, and Fan are the available mode settings for this machine. I'm happy about these options since you won't always need/want the condensers coming on and off, and you can dehumidify when it's cold out without turning on the AC.
WATER RESERVOIR
The koldfront is supposed to vent humidity out through the ducting, but has a water resevoir for high humidity situations. Unlike some machines, the reservoir isn't a bucket that you can remove from the machine. To drain the reservoir, you have to pull out a little plug at the bottom of the AC, which is about two inches off the ground. That doesn't give you much room to maneuver a drain pan. Fortunately, at 50LBS, it's not too heavy to put in the bathtub and let drain there. The lack of an accessible reservoir is a definite con though. Apparently the Koldfront is made to be able to hard-wire a drain, so that may be an option for some. I ran my machine on and off for a couple of days in San Francisco and it drained something like a cup of water. I don't know the total size of the reservoir, but the drain indicator lite hadn't turned on yet before I drained it.
THERMOSTAT
I've read some reviews complaining of an inaccurate thermostat on the KOLDFRONT, but mine seems to be about spot on.
REMOTE AND LCD PANEL
Don't lose the remote, or if you do, hope you had your Koldfront set exactly how you want to have it because there's no way to change settings without the remote. The remote itself is pretty intuitive, with power, up, down, mode, fan speed, Celsius/Fahrenheit, timer, and cancel buttons. And it comes with batteries. The LCD panel reads the ambient temperature in either Celsius or Fahrenheit until you press the up or down button on the remote, in which case it reads your preset temperature preference. There's a blue/green/yellow LED that indicates whether you're in AC/dehumidifier/ or fan mode, respectively. The information on the LCD is large enough to read from several feed away.
ASSEMBLY
Like most appliances, the Koldfront came with a cardboard cover over the packaging and plastic ties keeping it on. You just cut the ties and lift the cardboard cover off the machine. Inside, there's just a couple pieces of Styrofoam, the AC, and the window kit, plastic duct, instructions, remote, and two AAA batteries for the remote. The AC itself doesn't require any assembly, aside from plugging the duct in. The drain plug on mine had popped out, so I just twisted it back into place. There's a little more involved in assembling the window kit, but the instructions are pretty good on how to get that together. All you need (if your window is the right size) is a phillips head screw driver. The window kit is held into place by the weight of your window and doesn't need to be screwed into the window frame at all.
CONCLUSION
Overall, I'm happy with my Kodlfront. Mine arrived fully functional out of the box, and raising it to ceiling height has made it a lean, mean studio-cooling machine. It's a little bit bigger than I had guessed from the picture, but it's still smaller than most, and fit where I needed it to. It's loud, but inexpensive and has a built in thermostat and remote. Draining it is going to be a hassle, since I've moved it out of easy reach, but there's nothing else on the market that would have worked for me, so four stars for working properly, but not five, because of the lack of controls on the machine, the lack of a removable reservoir, and the loudness of the fan.
Description of 8,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner - Koldfront
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.Portable Tools
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