Portable air conditioners are movable units that can be used to cool a specific region of a building or home in a modular fashion, not requiring permanent installation. They are used for much the same purposes and in much the same ways as traditional "window a/c" units (cooling an overly hot room, cooling rooms in older homes without central a/c, providing a general "boost" in capacity to a home with an undersized central a/c e.g. "a hot upstairs bedroom", cooling a room that never had a/c before but is now being used for living or work space i.e. an attic converted into a play room or a shed converted into a workshop, etc).
Portable a/c units provide a cleaner looking end product (no bulky unit hanging out of the window) which may allow installation in areas with stricter neighborhood ordinances/association rules, and are generally easier to install (the window design and installation part itself becomes much less of an obstacle for the average person); for this reason they are a popular alternative to traditional "window units" but do have some disadvantages.
For example, they generally cost more than for an equally powerful (capacity) window unit e.g. a 10,000 BTU/h (~2.9kW) portable a/c with a standard feature set may sell for $300 retail versus the same capacity/featured window a/c unit at $150-$200 and they are somewhat noisier, since the compressor and condenser fan components are now inside the occupied space (although modern portable a/c units are fairly quiet and unobtrusive). Older portable a/c units also required periodic emptying of a condensate water tank (basically the water/humidity removed from the air) but modern units are designed in such a way that they rarely need to be emptied or maintained other than periodically cleaning the air filter.
Most portable air conditioners are refrigeration based rather than evaporative, and it is this type that is described in this section. Another application for portable air conditioner units is for the temporary rental in emergency situations such as power failures at warehouses, offices, or data centers.
Sources: Wikipedia
Portable a/c units provide a cleaner looking end product (no bulky unit hanging out of the window) which may allow installation in areas with stricter neighborhood ordinances/association rules, and are generally easier to install (the window design and installation part itself becomes much less of an obstacle for the average person); for this reason they are a popular alternative to traditional "window units" but do have some disadvantages.
For example, they generally cost more than for an equally powerful (capacity) window unit e.g. a 10,000 BTU/h (~2.9kW) portable a/c with a standard feature set may sell for $300 retail versus the same capacity/featured window a/c unit at $150-$200 and they are somewhat noisier, since the compressor and condenser fan components are now inside the occupied space (although modern portable a/c units are fairly quiet and unobtrusive). Older portable a/c units also required periodic emptying of a condensate water tank (basically the water/humidity removed from the air) but modern units are designed in such a way that they rarely need to be emptied or maintained other than periodically cleaning the air filter.
Most portable air conditioners are refrigeration based rather than evaporative, and it is this type that is described in this section. Another application for portable air conditioner units is for the temporary rental in emergency situations such as power failures at warehouses, offices, or data centers.
Sources: Wikipedia
