use to have one in my office it was brilliant till someone left the door open and it could not cope {they are made for set room sizes you will need to keep doors and windows shut}

We too had it in our office last year, it was a hired one that you did not need to put water in and it was very noisey and barely coped with the British summer

However this year my boss paid £3000 to have a proper system installed and it is brilliant and ice cool when you need it.

I would say the mobile units are ok as back up or when the weather is not too hot, but at our place in spain we have the installed stuff and you really need it when the temperature rises above about 27-30c.

Also luckily most of the noise is out back where the fans are

My pa-in-law bought one cheap from the El Corte Ingles op-shops. normally it cost 350€ but he got it cheap because it was ex-demo, scratched and has a caster missing. I have to say that it is quiet. It cools, but without being cold. I'm used to living in NW Spain, so when it managed to cool from 27 very humid degrees down to 23 much drier ones I was a whole lot more comfortable. The problem was though that the air outlet , the 'exhaust' so to speak, meant that we had to have the windo open slightly, thus allowing more hot 'n' humid air in. There's also the drip tray thingy, you need to epty it now and again if it's humid.

I'd consider buying one for occasional use, but if you want to use air con most of the summer, get a proper installed system.

I'm using 11,000 BTU dual hose portable air conditioner, it cools down the room in a really hot days too, and is really quiet. Cost ~$650.

got one in my bedroom in uk works fine , they do tend to collect water and shut off so you have to drain them out tho.

We bought one with my first job salary when we came to live in Cyprus. I started work at a new company mid May and we bought it at the end of June.

We used it for just one summer and it was a real pain in the backside. If you are going to use it on a long term basis then it's best to get the outlet fixed through a window. We used it with a the bedroom window slightly ajar and then pulled the sun shutters down as far as we could - so we had a square hole with a round pipe!!!

The outlet pipe carries the warm air through it so it always feels warm and in Cyprus with the humidty, that's no fun at all come July and August. Plus, it was noisy.

We used them in the offices in UK before I left for a couple of years and they struggled to keep the open plan office cool. On top of that, many of the staff who were sitting by them getting buffeted by the draft from them ended up with ear problems which gave symptoms similar to vertigo.

I would steer clear. We bought fixed split units the summer after that, one in the bedroom and then had a larger one put in our living room ready for the winter. The bedroom is 1200 btu and the living room 1800 btu.

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus