SPT WA-7500M 7,500-BTU, Poor at drying the air &..

Overall Rating3.53.53.53.53.5

Poor at drying the air & very cumbersome to move

We have the WA-1220M model of this product (virtually identical). If you stand right in front on it, up to about 5 feet away, it’s nice. However, it has several drawbacks:

1. It isn’t very good at drying the air; evaporation is needed for effective air-conditioning (whether in your car or your home).

2. It must be drained of the water it does pull from the air, and draining the unit is very cumbersome. It comes with a small flexible plastic tube that has to be connected to the rear bottom of the unit; the other end must be lower in order to drain or the unit really does very little and although there’s an indicator light that will come on if the unit is quite full of water, it’s very rare that the light comes on (and it only does so LONG after the unit has stopped cooling the air). We have taken to wrapping a large towel around the far end of the tube to collect water that drains, but basically you must tilt the heavy unit backwards to try to drain it. This is not particularly effective but it must be done.

3. It has wheels, but it doesn’t roll easily (it’s hard to push or pull it in a straight line and the wheels are so small even getting over a low rug is difficult.

4. Moving the unit up or down a single step can be accomplished by one person but since the entire unit is made of very smooth, slippery plastic (it has handles but they’re very shallow & not helpful), it’s more safely accomplished with two people.

5. Consider that this unit, while mobile, sacrifices a good window seal. The large exhaust hose (which pumps the hot air outside) resembles a telescoping dryer hose that easily falls out of the backside of the unit and is awkward to extend evenly. The unit comes with a smallish piece of foam with a cutout hole for the hose. However, you are left with having to find some way to block the rest of whatever window you choose to put the hole into. We use a large carboard box panel and cut a hole out of, then duct-tape the box into the window opening to block out air seepage. As you can imagine, it looks pretty tacky.

We wouldn’t buy this again.

Update (2/5/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, SPT WA-7500M 7,500-BTU Portable Air Conditioner with Manual Controls Kitchen, was written by Alesia.

The average rating for this item is 2.3 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.

Related posts:

  1. Frigidaire FAM156R1A, This unit is a workhorse
  2. WIN100 Heating & Cooling, reasonably reliable
  3. HTC HPB-334 Mobile Base, good product, poor..
  4. Panasonic PV-GS320 3.1MP, Poor low lighting…
  5. Haier HL26R 26-Inch, The right size…a good..

Reviews (3)

Alesia

February 16th, 2010 at 7:49 am    


Overall Rating22222

Poor at drying the air & very cumbersome to move
Rated 2 stars.


Unknown

February 22nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm    


Overall RatingNot Rated

Product Description
Stay COOL and breathe fresher air with our 7,500btu unit. Ideally cools an area up to 200sq.ft. Effectively improves air circulation in poorly ventilated spaces and maximizes energy efficiency. Manual control is specifically recommended for use in Server rooms. If there’s a power failure, unit will automatically turn itself back on when power resumes. Self-Evaporating Technology - during the cooling process, water is extracted from the air into the unit. Most of this water is then recycled and used to cool the cooling coils and make it run more efficiently, cooling as well as energy. Note: Exhaust hose installation required (all standard accessories included).


Fixup

February 28th, 2010 at 12:24 pm    


Overall Rating55555

For what it is, I give it 5 stars
In comparison, my 500W window AC runs cooler, but this 620W portable is so much more convenient. In my area, we need an AC only for few days a year; it was a pain to mount/unmount the window AC in summer/winter. So this one is perfect here, just plug it to the power and window and we have a good night of sleep.

It uses only 620W (300W less energy consumption than other portable ACs in this class), so we set it to the lowest temperature and let it cool continuously. The noise level is acceptable; we place it on upstairs and can barely hear it downstairs. Ran it for 24 hours and no need to drain water. In case the light says the tank is full, don’t drain the water too much as the water tank is used to cool down the machine for better efficiency. I also cover the hot hose with thick cloth.

During a heat wave, we start it in the morning with all windows closed and it keeps our house to 87F while the outside is 105F. Without this AC, temperature would be 91F even at downstairs, too high to stay with and upstairs would be simply baking. 87F is OK, especially for a day or two only. After the sun goes down, we still leave it on but open all the windows. This helps hugely on a heat wave in a otherwise cool area like Oregon vally. Hard to live without it. However, I think it is useless in a hot area like Texas.

The window mounting kit was missing, called SPT and a gentaman told me it would arrive in 3-5 days. What a customer support! While I’m waiting for the kit, I simply cut a hole on a small flat box and it works like a charm.

Unless your wife is a neat freak who asks you to unmount a window AC every winter, then don’t buy a portable AC. The latter is significantly less cool than the former. But if you’re as lucky as me and your area is not hot enough to worth a central AC, then you’d better get this.


Leave a reply

Overall Rating

Name *

Mail *

Website