Don’t worry, you don’t have rip out a huge tin box from the wall and lug it around with you to keep cool! Portable means exactly what it says on the tin – it’s portable. But what should you be looking for?

A portable air conditioner unit may come with or without a heater and in two types, either a hose or split system. Most air conditioners tend to work in a similar way by the use of a refrigerant system that passes refrigerant fluid through an expansion device and changes from liquid to gas when it absorbs heat and is then vented prior to changing back from gas to liquid. An exception to this are evaporative air coolers.

A split system would be connected to an external unit via tubing (similar to a central air conditioning unit) whereas a hose system is vented through air ducts. When looking at a hose system you also need to consider whether it collects the water in some form of receptacle and then stops when it is full (Monoblock version) or whether it discharges the water via the ducted hose (Air-to-Air version).

A single duct portable air conditioner unit is less efficient than a dual duct portable air conditioner unit as the latter draws air from the outside to cool instead of from the inside.

Similar to a portable air conditioner unit are evaporative air coolers or swamp air conditioners. These work differently in that they don’t use a condenser but evaporate water over cooling fins.

When buying you need to consider that with an evaporator, as the water evaporates it absorbs the heat but this can result in a ‘clammy’ atmosphere. However, without the need for external venting they can be more easily moved around the home, plus they tend to be lighter and smaller in size although not as effective in terms of cooling the home. A further consideration of any unit is of course noise, do check out the levels before you buy.