5000 BTU Air Conditioner

Starting to warm up, so I need to get a new AC for my computer/work room at home.

Any recommendations for a 5000BTU AC? There are bunch of cheap ones out there, but I had mixed experiences. I would rather spend a bit more to get a quiet, but powerful AC, that will last.

Anything Mitsub!shi!!
Price is higher than others! These are super reliable..
Also depends on wether you want a compact one for a smaller room or you have a window mount for AC , the window mount ones you can get one for as low as $135

How big is the room and how hot does it get during the day when the windows are closed?

I have a 5000 btu/hour window ac unit in my work area in my dad's garage. the room is 8 by 24 feet. Its well insulated and shaded by a tree so there is little heat load from the outside. It takes an hour or so to really notice a difference, but it will keep it pretty cool if you run it all day.

As for a good brand, I really have no idea. I believe I have an old GE unit in the garage. I got is used and cleaned out the inside and made sure everything was ok.

here are some websites that can be useful

Properly Sized Room AC : ENERGY STAR

Free Air Conditioning Calculator

It's a relatively small room, only 10x9 but it tends to warm up a lot, and easily. With closed windows during the day, I'm betting it would hit 100+ if I was also in there on the computer.

Temp right now outside is 60, in the room it's exactly 80.

I think 5000 BTU would be more than enough considering the room size.

My biggest concern is with reliability and silence. I like to watch movies/shows on the second monitor and in the past with an AC, having it loud drove me nuts.

I'm going to have a good look at the mitsubishi AC's.

Right now I'm leaning toward this one: Link.

I always rely on Consumer Reports, found the last issue with ACs reviewed July 2011 issue (ACs haven't been reviewed for this year yet). Pm incoming.

InfinitusEquitas said:

Starting to warm up, so I need to get a new AC for my computer/work room at home.

Any recommendations for a 5000BTU AC? There are bunch of cheap ones out there, but I had mixed experiences. I would rather spend a bit more to get a quiet, but powerful AC, that will last.

Click to expand...

My shop measures 24' X 40' X 9.5'. I installed two $89.00 5000BTU
air conditioners from a local Hardware store Sale 6 years ago and
they are both going strong.

A local AC installer wanted ~$800.00 for a 15,000BTU unit installed.

We start the 2 of them for an hour then only one is required to keep
us cool for the rest of the day.


Jerry

Thanks for your input guys. Especially HaloBlu for the PM with useful information.

I didn't look at the specific AC... except to read tons of reviews, but did look Fridiaire as a company.

Looks like they definitely dropped in quality, and now it's more hit or miss than it use to be.

Still reviews on specific models are good. So I went with a 6500 BTU AC. The model I linked to above.

Part of the reason is that Lowes which sells them is next to Microcenter, which had Diablo III on sale today for $10 less. (I'm either lazy, and cheap, or efficient, jury's still out )

The AC is not whisper quiet, as some reviews put it, but it's also not loud. My last Sharp made watching movies/tv hard.

No obvious problems as of the install, finished ~30 minutes ago.

In that time it cooled down the room from 81 to 70.5 degrees. Could be colder, but feels cold enough. 30 day money back guarantee, so I'll see how it holds up over the next ~3 weeks. My biggest fear/hope is that it develops some vibration, or start pooling water inside it, like one of my last ones did.

One star off a 5 star review for it though.... thermostat only goes down to 66 degrees. All my previous AC's went to 60. Granted I never actually need 60... but still.