Best Portable Air Conditioners for a Home Office
Here’s how to keep your cool while working from home
When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. 100% of the fees we collect are used to support our nonprofit mission. Learn more.
Millions of Americans are still working from home, sometimes in attics, basements, and other nooks and crannies that serve as offices. And often these out-of-the-way spaces don’t benefit from the air conditioning that exists in the main part of the house. The best solution is a window air conditioner, but they’re made to fit in a standard double-hung window, which a basement or attic might not have.
A portable air conditioner can get around that problem, but portable air conditioners aren’t as effective at cooling or as energy-efficient as window units. Nonetheless, we found in our tests that they can still do a good job of keeping a space cool and comfortable. Consumer Reports’ ratings include 30 portable ACs.
Best Portable Air Conditioners for a Home Office
We’d sooner recommend a window air conditioner, but if you have no way to properly install one, consider one of these top-performing portable models.
What to Know About Portable ACs
Before you go shopping for a portable air conditioner, there are several things to keep in mind that could cause some slight annoyances.
They aren’t so portable. Portable AC units come on casters, and you can put them in any room where you can install an exhaust to the outside. But “portable ACs can weigh between 50 and 80 pounds, so you might want a friend to assist you with moving it if you’re going up or down stairs,” says Chris Regan, the engineer who oversees CR’s portable air conditioner testing. And once you go to the trouble of installing the exhaust, you probably won’t want to move the unit.
You might need extra materials to create a tight seal around the exhaust. Products typically come with exhaust window installation kits, but you might need extra materials to close gaps where air can get in. “A trip to your local hardware store might be necessary to purchase soft foam, foam panels, or plexiglass,” Regan says.
Btu ratings can be misleading. Portable ACs typically have higher Btu ratings than window ACs, but that doesn’t mean they’re better at cooling. A window AC rated at 6,000 Btu will deliver more cooling than a portable AC unit rated at 6,000 Btu because window ACs are more energy-efficient. (Also note that portable models don’t have to meet the same Energy Star standards required of window units.)
They’re noisy. The loud parts of a window AC—the condenser and compressor—sit outside a window. But with a portable, all the mechanicals are in the unit that you place in your room, so they’re fairly noisy, meaning you might have to turn off the machine when you hop on a Zoom meeting. In comparison, the best window ACs are quieter, earning very good or excellent noise ratings.
They need their space. The exhaust hose of a portable AC can be 5 to 7 feet long, and the air conditioner unit needs to be at least 2 feet away from any walls or furniture that may block its airflow. So it’s like adding another piece of furniture to your office.
How CR Tests Portable Air Conditioners
We test each air conditioner in a room appropriate for its claimed size. We’ve adjusted our testing according to the DOE’s new standard. “We now go by the DOE’s Btu rating,” Regan says. “That means we are testing each unit in a room more appropriate to its cooling capacity.”
In our portable air conditioner tests, we measure how long it takes the machine to lower the temperature in the test chamber from 90° F to 85° F. We found that it takes at least 20 minutes—and often much longer. By comparison, the best window air conditioners can cool a room by 10° F in about 15 minutes or less.
To read more about the differences between portable, window, and central air conditioners, be sure to check out our air conditioner buying guide. You can also browse our database to see more details on all of the air conditioner models that CR tests.
BEST TIME TO BUY:
