Our favorite garage A/Cs don't just cool—they're easy to move and set up too. We tested six to find the coolest.
Summer is prime time for projects. And what is the ultimate project HQ for most households? That's right, the garage. Unfortunately, garages also tend to be one of the hottest places to work, turning even simple jobs into sweaty chores.sweat our faces off in our garage.
While adding a permanent HVAC solution is ideal, it's not always practical or affordable. If your garage has a window, decent insulation, and a standard electrical outlet, a portable air conditioner can be an easy way to cool the space. Better yet, when you're finished in the garage, you can wheel it inside the house for extra cooling elsewhere.
We tested several portable air conditioners to find the models that can keep a typical two-car garage comfortable enough to work in all summer long.portable air conditioner puts out, and for a garage specifically, it's nearly necessary. But aside from impressive BTU ratings, this unit tested favorably in our other metrics. Notably impressive is the efficiency of a dual-hose system. By pulling in outside air alongside the exhaust hose, the system eliminates the low-pressure areas created by single-hose units.
This can be particularly problematic in a garage, where it's generally less finished than inside your home—warm air comes through cracks and gaps. This unit solves that. On the flip side, it's large, heavy, and a bit unsightly. But we appreciated the intuitive controls and lack of any assembly.
If you need a powerful portable air conditioner that's also easy enough to operate, this is our pick.features a sort of combination. By combining both intake and exhaust hoses into one, it offers the benefits of a dual-hose system, but you only need to fiddle with one hose.
However, this combo-hose leads us to believe that there's an efficiency loss with the differing air temps in such close proximity. Still, we appreciate how easy the hose is to install in your window and decompress into the unit when not in use. For usability, we love how compact and easy the singular hose is to install in a window.
Paired with physical buttons and words rather than symbols, we'll give the ease-of-use award to this unit over our top pick. For solid power and intuitive controls, this is a great option to keep your garage cool.is an excellent choice if budget is on your mind. Sleekness, simplicity of use, and solid BTU ratings are all pluses in our book.
For the interface, we typically prefer words over symbols, but the symbols on this unit actually make sense and won't force you to flip through the instruction manual to figure out what is what. The handles feel robust, and the casters are smooth. Overall, the power is plenty to get your garage temperatures tolerable. And at a nice price, it's our pick for Best Value.didn't represent enough household appliances, here's their portable air conditioner.
Right off the bat, the sleek gray shell looks sharp in any setting—though we found it scratched quite easily. The interface is solid, but we had issues with responsiveness with the display, and finding the right angle for the remote to work took too long. Cooling works fine, though the wattage draw during max A/C is higher than that of its similar Black+Decker counterpart.
If aesthetics are more your thing, this elegant, price-friendly portable air conditioner might work better in your home rather than the scratch-prone garage. is the lightest portable air conditioner in our test and moves around with ease. The remote is solid too. But from there, it doesn't do much to stand out from the competition. The cold air vents aren't angled up as much as the others, which can delay cooling time.
And that BTU rating of 7000 might be on the low side for a garage. It's not a bad option, but there are others that we'd recommend more highly.is a solid honorable mention. Right off the bat, we love that the remote works at any angle, and the self-oscillating function is a nice touch. But one quality hampered this A/C unit: the noise.
While on full blast, it produced an annoying rattle, as reflected in our decibel reading. While 68 decibels isn't a whole lot, it's a whole lot more than the others. Maybe it won't bother you in your garage but, still, there are other models that we prefer. We stuck to a more experiential approach to testing garage air conditioners, since their effectiveness depends mainly on garage size and construction.
So rather than lugging them around to different garages, we simply ranked them by setup, ease of use, portability, and specs. Once plugged in, they all spit out cold air. Off to a good start.was required before turning them on. We also weighed each A/C unit and measured the length of both the power cord and vent tubing.
We observed things that made the unit moreWe then turned our attention to the interface on the unit itself, along with how well each remote functioned for ouroverall, things like how easy they were to drain the condensation, how robust the vent felt, and extra features such as dehumidifying. In the end, we rewarded the units that were a positive experience overall. This is essentially a performance rating, usually represented in British Thermal Units .
It relates to the amount of space that the unit is capable of cooling. A higher BTU rating means more power and, therefore, a larger coverage area.offers a free and impressively useful BTU calculator to help you find the right BTU rating for your space and get the cooling coverage you need. Department of Energy to better reflect performance in a real-world scenario. This method uses a variety of ambient temperatures and humidity levels to determine a BTU rating.
TheYou'll want an air conditioner that's powerful enough to cool whatever size garage or room it'll be operating in. The general guideline is—but if you're trying to cool an unfinished garage or workspace, typical guidelines often go right out the window. Many older garages lack insulation, let alone interior drywall or flooring. Most have open ridge or soffit vents that allow air to enter and escape.
Garages with exposed roof beams that receive a lot of direct sunlight will require more cooling power. And of course, most garage doors don't completely seal out the elements, either. If this describes your garage, bear it in mind when buying a portable air conditioner. Some garage air conditioners can be pretty loud, so factor that into your installation location.
Keeping cool is great and all but not if you can't hear yourself think. Though if your garage is anything like ours, you'll likely not hear it over the sounds of your projects. ) to get a feel for how much that electrical bill is going to increase. Try to find the right balance of cooling power and operating efficiency.
Not like to your therapist. Portable A/C units require some sort of exhaust to expel the hot air. Many can be mounted to a window, using either only a single-hose setup or a dual-hose setup, where outside air is being pulled in via an intake hose next to the exhaust hose.
A/Cs recirculate and re-cool the air in the room and are typically less expensive and easier to assemble than their dual-hose counterparts.units pull fresh air in from the outside. They make up for their higher prices and additional assembly by being generally more effective at cooling larger areas and also more efficient.
If you'll be moving the A/C unit around frequently, look for one that comes with casters and handles, or get a lighter, smaller unit that you can easily pick up and carry. Don't blow out your back just trying to blow some air. Air conditioners will collect condensation over time, usually into a tank that’ll need to be emptied regularly, although some have an automatic draining system, where excess water is expelled through the exhaust hose.
Portable garage air conditioners can come equipped with a whole host of abilities these days. Bluetooth compatibility, auto-shutoff, air purification, dehumidifying, and remote control are a few examples. Some units will also have heating functions for colder months. Usually, more features will mean a higher price, so you'll have to choose what's most important for you.
Most units will provide reliable cooling for five to 10 years and can last close to 15 or even more with proper care, depending on frequency of operation and cooling load. Yep! Almost all portable air conditioners are compatible with a regular 120-volt outlet. Just make sure that the outlet can handle the power draw without tripping any breakers.
Typically, it is fine to leave them running all day, although you will be paying more for prolonged energy usage. Also, the unit could potentially age more quickly with round-the-clock operation. The three-minute rule is a recommendation that you wait at least three minutes before turning an air conditioner back on after turning it off, as it allows the pressure in the system to equalize. This will help preserve the compressor and other important parts.
The 20-degree rule suggests not setting your air conditioner to a temperature that is more than 20 degrees different from the external temperature. This will avoid putting too much strain on the device and can help keep your energy bill down.
's renowned testing standards mandate that we use all products we feature and that our findings and recommendations are based on personal experience and knowledge—not hype. We won't claim to have tested something we haven't, and we'll never recommend a product we wouldn't buy ourselves. Collin Morgan is a Commerce Editor at Hearst Autos, where he presents the best gear for your automotive endeavors.
He has been a technician in the trenches of Midwestern automotive repair, explored the automotive shrines in central Italy, and now enjoys making slow cars go fast around various Michigan racetracks. With a degree in multimedia journalism and a passion for the automotive world, Mason Cordell enjoys driving, wrenching, writing, and everything in between. He keeps a running note sheet titled"cars for collection" and already owns a ‘95 Miata and an ‘08 M5. Clearly, he has a problem.
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