( 6 reviews )
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Posted: May 30 2008
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.
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Posted: May 30 2008
We have the WA-1220M model of this product (virtually identical but not RC). 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.
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Posted: Jun 14 2007
I've had one for a couple of months, and am VERY disappointed with it. It puts out cool air, but definitely not cold air... Consequently, at best, it can get my bedroom down 10-15 degrees in temp, after several hours of running full blast. (Note that I quickly gave up trying to use it in my livingroom, where it would make almost no detectable change in room temp...) A MUCH better choice I think would be to go with a std window unit (albeit it would be more difficult to install). It would work much better, and be much less expensive as well!!!
