AC-Reviews.com

My girlfriend has a smallish apartment that, for some reason or another, was designed to face the sunrise. She loves the sunshine but constantly keeps the blinds closed in fear that it’ll heat up her studio home. During the summers, as I found last year, it gets hot, really hot. It doesn’t help to add that she lives in the Inland Empire, away from my comfortable Orange County tastes, and her apartment complex doesn’t offer the conventional central AC that I’m used to. I spent many weekends with her in hot sweltering heat…and my only condolence was to go to the public pool.

Since her apartment was already small, we wanted to purchase something that would compliment her living space. Other portable AC units are pretty huge and the footprint is often sizable. We went to Target online and had a Haier CPRB07XC7 shipped to us. Unfortunately, the Haier unit requires a working remote to program and it wasn’t working right out of the bat. We made a trip to Target that day to inform them of the non-working unit, and we went through a pretty extensive process to get what we needed: a working AC unit…which we needed out of the box!

30 days later we received the new remote, and finally put the CPRB07XC7 to use. Although it’s a nice unit, I found that the 30-day wait was really unecessary. On the Target online store, I’ve read that many other customers have had the same problem with the remote…and at first I thought that it was just one of those things that “wouldn’t happen to me”. Perhaps Haier should rethink a remote-less design for convenience! Thankfully, it’s still working as of today. Just hope the remote doesn’t break again.

I have heard that nowadays they ship the unit with two remotes…who ships any appliance with two remotes? Must be a very dire sign that even the company doesn’t have much confidence in their product…

So I’ve been frantically searching for an evaporative cooler in an attempt to be more “green.”  One of my coworkers purchased a portable unit from Air-N-Water.com and while I’ve bought from them before (their eBay store, to be fair), there have been a few negative customer reviews for them on the internet.  As an air conditioner reviewer and seeing as they mostly carry cooling products, I wanted to see if the company could clarify some of their CS issues.  I sent the following e-mail to their company in the hopes of their response:

Hi,

I’m interested in purchasing a swamp cooler from your company, but noticed that there are a few negative reviews from your company online — most of which involve damages that occur during shipping and the quality of your products.  I just wanted to know what happens if a product gets damaged in transit and how well your evaporative coolers really work.  Your staff has been helpful in the past and I’m thinking of purchasing a unit from you.

Thanks,

Alex

I received a prompt response within 24 hours and here’s what one of their staff members sent me:

Dear Alex,

As part of our ongoing efforts to provide a better customer experience, we thank you for your feedback and are aware of some of the negative reviews our past customers have left us.  We’re glad that you found our sales staff to be helpful and accommodating as we do try our very best to provide exceptional and personalized customer service to each and every one of our customers.  We’re also pleased that you have not let negative www.Air-N-Water.com reviews prevent you from purchasing from us.  Here are our responses to some common Air-N-Water.com complaints you’ve pointed out:

Air-N-Water.com Complaints Regarding Damages Occurring During Transit

Unfortunately, due to the size and nature of the products the company carries, damages occurring during the shipping process can occur.  Air-N-Water works hard to make sure shipments leaving the warehouse are packed properly so as to prevent damages.  However, should this occur, we recommend our customers follow these procedures.

For UPS / FedEx / Postal Shipments

If the shipment shows outward evidence of damage, open the package before signing the delivery form. Notify the local UPS distribution center or Post Office. Do not alter the carton or the damaged goods until an inspection by the appropriate agency has been made. The package will be picked up and returned back to Air-N-Water.com. The merchandise will be repaired or replaced at our expense.

Freight Shipments

If damage or loss is evident, Air-N-Water.com requests the customer indicate it on the carrier’s delivery form. Do not refuse the shipment – simply file a claim immediately with the carrier and then notify Air-N-Water.com.  Keep all packaging materials and the damaged goods until inspection has been made.

Air-N-Water.com Complaints Regarding Defective Merchandise

Many of the negative www.air-n-water.com reviews you’ve pointed out in your e-mail are related to the effectiveness of the evaporative coolers we carry.  While it’s true that evaporative (or swamp coolers) are great at providing efficient cooling using much less electricity, they’re most effective in hot, dry climates with low humidity levels.  Examples of such areas would be the American Southwestern states.  Unfortunately, some customers happen to purchase these products expecting them to cool just as well as central AC systems, and this simply isn’t possible.  We’ve created a very helpful portable cooling guide for our customers and suggest you take a look at our humidity chart to make sure an evaporative cooler will work in your area.

Again, I thank you for taking the time to e-mail us and for letting us respond to some common Air-N-Water.com complaints.  We hope you will decide to use us for all of your future cooling, heating, and purification needs.

Sincerely,

Gordon Lee

Air & Water, Inc.

I picked this Royal Sovereign Portable Air Conditioner at a SEARs while planning my pre-emptive measures for the hot summer months. My apartment doesn’t have a central AC unit and has forced me to use less conventional methods. Last summer I kept wet bandanas chilled on my neck, as it was a Boy Scout survival technique I learned when I was 8. I do have an older window AC unit with the apartment, but after awhile it shut down and I was not willing to hassle the management for it (since they did a “wonderful” job on my heater…it smells like old clothes).

I researched a lot of units and decided on this simple AC unit because it had high markings. I turned it on and left it on for an afternoon while I went grocery shopping for the week…and when I returned it was ice cold in my apartment. I was very pleased. My mother actually asked me to bring it over already…to help her clean out her hot attic. I hated cleaning the attic as a kid, and for some reason or another my mom would always choose summer to do it. I suppose it’s because the day care kids are gone, and that summer is the “slow” month for my mom’s business.

I turned the AC on for about an hour before I went to work in the attic a few weekends ago. I dare say…I wasn’t so upset about helping her out anymore! Eventually I was comfortable enough, and the attic was clean enough, to pull out my old sleepingbag and take a nice siesta..!

The NewAir AC-10000E is a portable air conditioner that’s built for the apartment dweller in mind.  This unit is marketed to cool single rooms and personal spaces.  It weighs about 50 pounds and is honestly one of the lightest portable ACs I’ve ever seen.

The tiny NewAir AC-10000E has 10,000 BTUs of cooling and is ideal for rooms no larger than 200 square feet.  I found that the 12-hour timer, programmable temperature settings, and remote control made it easy to control temperature settings, while the Energy Efficiency Ratio of 11.6 will help me save money on electricity costs (hopefully!).  The include window kit was pretty easy to use and I was ready to hook the unit up in my bedroom in about 10 minutes.  I found that the NewAir AC-10000E portable air conditioner was pretty quiet, but my only qualm with this machine was that it didn’t seem to have an auto-start feature for power outages (not really a big deal unless you’re using it for a computer service room or something).  If you have a slightly larger room, the Soleus LX-120 12,000 BTU portable AC unit (*est. $380) will probably do the trick for about a hundred dollars more.

Because the NewAir AC-10000E supposedly came out a few weeks ago, there are very few reviews of this portable air conditioner.  I was a little hesitant in buying something with little to no information available, but given that this unit was incredibly compact, it was really the only choice I had for my tiny 700 square foot studio apartment.  Currently I’ve only found 2 stores that carry it – Air-N-Water.com and Air-Conditioner-Home.com.  Both retailers have it on sale for $299, but with a little research, I think you can get it for less with a discount code or something.

I ended up buying my AC-10000E from www.air-n-water.com, and it arrived on my doorstep in a few days, so I was happy with the service.  Overall, I’d rate this portable air conditioner an 8/10.  While it isn’t the strongest unit you can buy, the fact that it’s as small as most room dehumidifiers makes it awesome.