Please tell me about portable air conditioning units - already afraid of summer heatwaves!

[BlibBlabBlob]

I live in the north of England and it rarely gets super hot here but last summer there were two brief full-on heatwaves and everyone in my house totally ceased to function. Neurodiverse household, sensory issues, one of us with fairly severe anxiety, all of us unable to sleep at night and do anything useful during the day because it was SO FREAKIN' HOT. And that only happened twice all summer, and only for 2-3 days each, and we still couldn't cope. Our house is fairly old but brick built and didn't keep cool for very long once temperatures rose - it made me miss my old Victorian stone-built house!

We're thinking ahead to this summer and wanting to find a way to make sure we can cool a couple of bedrooms effectively if it gets really hot. Maybe even all three bedrooms.

Would we need 2-3 aircon units? I'm thinking we need one per room?

And how do the window kits work for sealing off the opening where the hose goes out? Are they easy enough to install? Can you easily close the window when you're going out, or do you have to leave the window permanently open as long as the window kit is in place?

Please tell me your experiences and share your expertise; this will be a massive investment for us that we can't really afford, but we also can't afford to suffer like we did last summer. And I'm thinking that buying aircon units now, towards the end of winter, will be WAY cheaper than buying them once summer gets underway.

---

If you’ve landed here looking for ways to beat the heat this summer, we’ve recently updated our best air conditioner page with guidance and advice on whether they're right for your household. We hope it’s useful.
MNHQ

I have the JML one thar doesn't have a pipe, you fill it with water & icepacks, I'm in a ground floor flat so can't sleep with the windows open

Thank you so much everyone, this is really helpful! I'm worried about venting, our windows only have little top openings and we have horizontal window blinds which we need to keep in place (although can have them open) to stop our cats getting out at night. And there is furniture against the windows, so actually fitting the air conditioners into the rooms will be tricky even using longer hoses.

All three of our bedrooms come off the same landing, which is quite big... I'm now wondering if we should get one really powerful unit and put it on the landing? We don't have a window that opens there to vent it, unfortunately, but could potentially run it out of the bathroom window with a long hose and a window kit. That window opens from the bottom and swings outward, it's not just a little top-opening window like in the bedrooms.

Would still have the cat containment problem, but I guess on the rare night that we really need AC we could just let them go in and out of the bathroom window. They do that during the daytime, in addition to using the cat flap (which is locked at night as we don't want them roaming then).

I have a very large house and one unit easily does one floor. You can literally make your own venting set up, what about running Velcro round the window frame and having a board with a hole in it for the pipe?

We've spent the last 3 years living in a caravan while renovating the house. We had a cheap on in our bedroom and even in the 40 degree weather and a tin roof it got our bedroom down to 20 degrees. Well worth it. If money allows, fixed AC is even better!!