( 2 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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( 0 of 1 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jul 10 2007
Think very hard before buying this machine. We bought it with the hope it might actually cool down a room, or at least keep a room comfortable, but alas nothing of the sort was achieved. Instead we are left with a frightfully noisy and large thing that fails simply does not work. It is besides a very poorly engineered machine, demanding that one spends half an hour at a time just adding or subtracting one of the hoses depending on how hot it is outside. And then one is left to refit it to the window, which cannot be done without copious amounts of unsightly gaffer tape. The instruction guide is so idiotically conceived as to explain, with an entire page of the booklet, how to fit batteries into the remote, yet not a word was written on how to connect any of the hoses, nor how to adjust the vent. It should be a crime that such a machine be allowed to be sold. Do yourself a favor and buy something, anything, else.
