Air conditioners / Air Coolers - recomendations for good but reasonably priced options please

[Holymoly321]

I'm 4 mths preg and have bad circulation, which means I get very cold in bad weather but VERY VERY HOT in hot weather, so this summer is going to be a nightmare for me!!! We're thinking of buying an air conditioner or air cooler for our bedroom so that I may be able to get some sort of sleep at night. Don't want to spend more than around 150-200. Can anyone recommend one? Something that is not too big and ugly too would be a bonus!

We have a couple of the tower air conditioner type. Got them from Argos I think. They have the facility to oscillate (sp) back and forward or be pointing in one direction.

They can be put on a timer so they don't need to be on all night and they are slim enough to be pushed out of the way during the day.

We have one in the nursery room and they are quiet enough not to disturb the baby. HTH

Hi Flower, how much were they and did they really cool the air down?

Just had a quick look on their website www.argos.co.uk and they have two for 29.99 and one on sale at 19.97.

I think they do cool the air air down, as an added cooling effect we sometimes soak and wring out a towel and hang it over the back of a kitchen chair with the fan behind the chair. The cool air blows through the wet towel making the air a bit cooler still. Obviously the chair must have an open back.

I must add that our upstairs is incredibly hot during summer, we have an egg thermometer in the nursery and without the fan this often read 27 to 29 degrees which is far to hot for a baby. The fan ensures that baby is safe.

thanks flower, I'll have a look. In the meantime, anyone else have other, possibly more expensive and therefore more cooling suggestions?

We bought one similar to this last summer when it was really hot and it worked like a dream. DD had it in her bedroom last night and when I went in about 11 o'clock it felt like a fridge!

It has adjustable temperature to cool down to. It's best to set it for the lowest at night, I find, as otherwise it tends to switch on and off to maintain temp and I find that quite disturbing whereas the constant hum, whilst noisy, can be quite soothing.

They were demonstrating quite a few at Homebase this weekend, with offers on them.

It is well worth spending the money and getting air con over a fan IMO but bear in mind it's portability is limited as it is VERY HEAVY! We leave ours upstairs as that gets hotter and coping with heat is easier in the day than being restless and too hot at night for our family, plus lack of sleep due to that makes for very irritable big and little people!

BTW, lowest temp setting is 16C.

THis looks interesting SueW. How does it work? Would we need to have a hose out the window or something? Do you have to fill it with ice?

Yes, you have to stick the hose out of the window. Or you can put a hole/ventilation point in your wall. I can't remmeber the option for this - there was something in with the unit but also something extra could be ordered I think.

It has a refrigeration unit inside so pumps out beautiful COLD air!

It has a drip tray at the back which you have to empty but I can't remember it being a constant job.

You need to look carefully at your room size and any charts on the homebase/B&Q websites which explain what size (BTUs) to buy for any given room size. Try here

Last summer, when it was really hot, we all slept in one room (well there are only three of us and DD slept on a sofa in our room) so we could get a decent night's sleep with the air con on!