WA User Full Review of PH4-13R-01

I have lived in western Washington going on 30 years. Most people do not have air conditioning because the climate does not make it necessary. Puget Sound with its cool water temperature is large enough that it has a major effect on our temperatures. It can get hot in the summer during the day but will usually cool down enough in the evening that sleeping at night is pretty comfortable.
There can be up to a couple of weeks when the nights just don't cool enough and this year I decided to prepare for them.

I started searching the web for information on portable air conditioning units and noted that there were a number of reviews that were generally poor and they covered all makes and models. After reading for hours I came to the conclusion that many people have higher expectations of a portable unit than it can provide. I knew that I would get the best performance based on the BTU capability of the unit I selected. I decided to go out and see what I could find and ended up at Home Depot and they had 10,000BTU, 12,000BTU and the 13,000BTU (PH4-13R-01). Once I got it home it was easy to get hooked up and operating. I installed the air filter, assembled the window adapter and hoses and attached the hoses to unit. It was now just a matter of turning the unit on. It was only a matter of minutes and you could feel a major difference in room temperature. The dual hose capability of this unit handles larger areas better than single hose units.

I have read that these units are noisy, well I found it to be very acceptable. We have a tri-level (approx 1800 sq ft) and set up the Soleus in the rec-room (lower level), It was not a bother watching television with it running with fan on high. This is a heat pump unit and not the traditional motor compressor type technology. It is much more efficient.

With the temperature over 90 degrees out side I was suprised that with the bedroom doors closed upstairs the rest of the house maintained a very comfortable 74 degrees with the rec-room itself at 72 and low humidity. This is with all the windows closed and blind/shades drawn to block direct sun.

The window kit is easy to assemble and install but it does not provide a positive seal. You can adjust or trim to fit most any window easily. I install in vertically in our patio door and then also install it vertically in our bedroom window which is 4x6. It has wing nut that when loose the sections slide to adjust longer or shorter.

Appearance in the room is good and I like how the louvers disappear when the unit is turned off.

Controls are Timer, sleep, heat/cool/dehumid., fan hi/med/lo/auto and are very easy to use and understand. The remote control is not very high quality but works well.

The water purge system works great. If internal tank does fill during cooler times, the air conditioner will turn off automatically leaving the fan on until the tank is drained. You can easily drain the tank using the fitting on the back of the unit.