All portable air conditioners are designed to pump heat from inside to outside, via a hose, cooling down a room. While they all work in roughly the same way, there are two types of air conditioners: ones with a single hose and ones with dual hoses. Here, we’ll explain the differences.
First, it’s worth noting that most portable air conditioners sold in the UK have just a single hose, and dual-hose models are less popular.
In fact, we’ve reviewed only one dual-hose model, the portable Ecoflow WAVE 2. However, there are some other models, and there’s a chance that more will be available, particularly as average temperatures rise and more people start to buy air conditioning, as they actually cool a room, unlike a fan.
How a portable air conditioner works
Air conditioning doesn’t technically cool the air down, instead, it’s designed to remove heat from the room and pump it outside, using a refrigerant that changes state between a liquid and a gas. Our guide, how do portable air conditioners work?, has the full details.
The important thing to understand for this context is that there’s a cold side, and a hot side to all AC units. The cold side is where heat is absorbed from your room, resulting in cool air being blown out of your AC’s vent; the warm side is where the collected heat is released and vented to the outside.
Releasing the heat requires air to be blown over a condenser coil. Where this air comes from is the crucial difference between single and dual-hose AC units.
A single-hose air con unit
With a single-hose air con unit, the air used for the condenser is taken from inside. As this air is pumped outside, it can create a slight vacuum effect. To replace the air that you’ve pumped out, hot air is pulled into your home through cracks and other methods of entry, such as gaps in windows and doors.
As warm air is pulled in, the portable air con unit has to work harder, trying to cool down this additional hot air, which makes them less efficient.
A dual-hose air con unit
The difference with a dual-hose air con unit is that the second hose is used to extract air from outside, which is then blown over the condenser coil, and then extracted outside. With this kind of system, you’re not pumping out air from inside, so it is a more efficient air exchange process.
Which system is best?
Single-hose air conditioning units are generally cheaper, work well in smaller rooms, and are easier to set up, as there’s just a single exhaust hose. They are less efficient, however. Dual-hose air conditioning units are typically more efficient and tend to work faster, but they’re fiddlier to set up and move around, as you have to put two hoses out of a window.
The post Single vs dual hose air conditioners: Read this before buying your AC appeared first on Trusted Reviews.
