Do Portable Air Conditioners Collect Water?

Air conditions help reduce warm temperatures in the room and make scorching hot days a tad more tolerable. Plus, they provide effective cooling with minimal water usage. Indeed, portable air conditioners perform a highly important function during the blazing hot summer months. The fact that they are portable and lightweight only makes them even more efficient systems, and one of the most sought after products in the summertime. The only thing that troubles portable AC owners is whether they need to keep an eye on their unit every now and again for water accumulation. Do portable air conditioners collect water? Does your portable air conditioner need emptying? And if so, after how many hours of operation? All these will be answered below.

How Portable AC Units Drain Water

Portable air conditioners suck in the warm air from the atmosphere, remove moisture, and then release the warm air outside, usually via a window kit. As they are cooled, however, they produce condensation. This water is either drained through a hose or contained in an internal water reservoir.

The most advanced portable AC units feature self-evaporative technology that enables the air conditioner model to vent out the warm air and evaporate moisture through the exhaust hose automatically. In this case, you will probably never need to deal with things like collecting condensate water.

A second solution is to drain the bucket manually. You simply turn the unit off, empty the water into a drip pan, and replace the bucket before the cooling begins again. The manual removal of the water may require you to collect the moisture every few hours to even once a month. This depends on factors such as:

• The portable AC make
• The time of use
• The size of the tank
• How high you have set the portable AC unit
• The humidity levels in your area.

Another alternative option to get rid of the collected moisture is to gravity drain the portable air conditioner. This is easily done by attaching a drain hose to the reservoir’s connection. That way, you will be able to direct water into a drain.

It’s important to note that most portable AC units have an auto-shutoff function that prevents the water from being spilled onto the ground.

What if your portable AC unit fills with water too quickly?

This can be caused by a number of reasons, such as:

• High humidity levels: Your patience will be tested here since the model is probably working harder to cool the room (remember that the air cooling procedure involves removing humidity from the air). The same applies to climates with high humidity. You can’t do much in this case except for emptying the bucket more often. You could help reduce the times you need to empty the water by ensuring you don’t have any standing water in the home (i.e., laundry that is hung all over the place).
• A newly installed product: A model you have just installed or purchased will be called to dehumidify everything from the walls and ceilings to the floor and other indoor materials initially. Once this process is done, emptying the unit will not be as frequent a task for you.
• A problematic air filter: If the portable AC is faulty, it may condense more water. The clogging of the air filter is usually to blame here, which blocks the airflow over the AC’s evaporator coil. In the end, the coil freezes and starts to melt, dripping water to the evaporation container.