All About Portable Air Conditioners

Answer 1

When the summer hits, so does the heat. While there is essential relief in the form of shade, more and more often people find that they need air conditioning in order to stave off dangers like heat stroke. While this is easily found inside a car or building, such an escape from the heat is often not possible when in a public park or camping trip. This is why portable air conditioners were developed, to permit people on the move to enjoy the benefits of air conditioning.

Portable air conditioners were originally developed for use in trailers, especially those used by street vendors. These units were large and heavy, but created huge quantities of cold air to be used in small areas. Some worked by blowing air across ice or through chilled water, but over time they came to be miniature versions of traditional air conditioners, concentrating heat in a radiator which moved it outside, and blowing cool air inside.

Portable air conditioning units move heat in one direction and push cold air in another direction. When mounted up high, or placed where they can vent, they can greatly decrease the temperature in a small area. The problem is that, when used outside, they tend to have an incredibly limited range, since any air they cool is immediately replaced by more hot air.

As such, increasingly portable air conditioners have been developed to work along with enclosed spaces. For example, a portable air conditioner, powered by a battery, might be built into a tent in order to help campers to get out of the heat. Boats and other semi-open craft tend to be cramped enough to where cooling off just a small, shady portion of the boat is more than enough to make it much more comfortable. There are even personal aid conditioning units, which blow cold air onto the face while dumping warm air elsewhere.

Since the laws of thermodynamics necessitate that in order to make cool air, hot air must also be produced, portable air conditioners will remain limited by the need to function in an enclosed space. Still, they are becoming increasingly common in portable and temporary structures, especially tents and outdoor pavilions. Their ability to direct jets of very cool air helps to make shady structures much more comfortable even in the height of summer.