Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased two of these Whynter units for my home in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it's rather uncommon to have central air in an older house. I also have two of the TP-Link Smart Outlets monitoring the power utilization of these, and based on my tier of $0.39/Kw, they cost about $50-$70 per unit per month to operate. Well worth it with the following adjustments. Although it's fairly well known that these units are not as efficient or affective as their window-mount counterparts, they seem to get the job done, with a few DIY tweaks: (1) Make your own window mount!!! The window mounts that these units come with have two major issues: (1) the intake and exhaust vents are too close together, meaning that the intake will tend to suck in some of the hot air that the exhaust is pushing out, making the AC's job that much more difficult. When you build your own window mount, you have the option of spreading these ducts out, and thus alleviating this issue. (2) the mount is very flimsy and not at all insulated, meaning you're likely to have some hot air from outside seeping in around your mount. This is especially true if you opt not to use the intake hose, because you will be pulling a vacuum on your room (air being pushed out, but not replaced with external air, meaning your room has a low pressure zone) which in turn pulls hot air in from the outside and makes it quite difficult to cool a room. Long story short, use both the intake and exhaust hoses!!! I've posted a picture of the mount I made from a sheet of sanded plywood ($14 at Home Depot), using a jigsaw (Black & Decker, $25 on amazon), and some MD 2097 weather stripping to get a good seal ($3 on amazon). This mount made a MASSIVE difference in my ability to cool the room, and came with the added benefit of blocking out light (we have shutters that had to stay all the way open for the hoses to be in place). I'm still needing to build another window mount for my second unit, but I've attached photos showing the improvement. (2) Heat wrap your exhaust hose! The exhaust hose on these units gets super warm when the AC unit is in operation. That heat escapes back into the room you're trying to cool, having pretty significant effects. I purchased the Reflectix DW1202504 Spiral Duct Wrap ($21 on amazon) and it was enough to do two exhaust hoses (1 for each of my AC units). There's no need to wrap your intake hose. It took a bit of work to get this wrap cut to size, especially for the curved areas (I am nowhere near a clothing manufacturer), but through some trial and error I found that a S curve in the middle of the sheet allowed the wrap to fit snug around corners. I've attached a photo of the finished product for the exhaust hose. Reflectix DW1202504 Spiral Duct WrapM-D Building Products 2097 Low Density Foam Tape, 3/8-by-1/2-Inch-by-17 Feet, GrayBlack & Decker BDEJS300C Jig Saw, 4.5-Amp