Blowing Hot Air About Cold Air

May 18, 2012 12:58 PM

Blowing Hot Air About Cold Air: Reviews of portable air conditioning units are rather vague about how loud they are. There are a few that advertise "library quiet", but I'm not so sure. Does anyone have experience with one of these machines? I need a QUIET one. If I could get down to half the volume of a window unit, I'd be very happy.
posted by ecorrocio to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Part of the issue, simply, is that the more they can vibrate, the more noise they'll make.

Additionally, the more reflective noise surfaces available, again, the more noise they'll seem to make. Even if they were rated in decibels, it would still vary based on what your particular installation situation is.

What's your installation?

Are you looking for window mount, personal, freestanding?

What's the application?

Can a small cooling one that is quiet be paired with a fan that moves the air around?

I have bought a number of air circulatory, and simply returned ones that were too quiet (when I needed air and white noise) or too noisy to circulation ratio (when I needed to move air, dammit, quietly, dammit, without it yodeling at me).
posted by tilde at 1:26 PM on May 18, 2012

I'd like something like this. Rolling unit we can use in several rooms. One of them my office where I need it reasonably quiet. Window unit is just too loud.
posted by ecorrocio at 2:27 PM on May 18, 2012

I have a "library" quiet one. I'm not home right now so I can't tell you the make/model right now, but it is substantially quieter than the window unit I have in the other room. It's very quiet. I can barely hear it when it's on. It also works very well. I've had it four years now I think, still works great.
posted by newpotato at 2:29 PM on May 18, 2012

Newpotato: thanks. If you get a chance I'd love to know the make.
posted by ecorrocio at 6:09 PM on May 18, 2012

Hope it's not too late, forgot to check when I first got back a few days ago. It's a Sharp CVPO9LX.
I turned it on to check it out, and yeah, it's pretty quiet.
posted by newpotato at 3:42 AM on May 23, 2012