I have an 8000 BTU one-hose portable AC that I’ve had since 2011. This year is its 11th summer. I bought it for ~$250.
I’m only using it in my bedroom, so smallish room, not the main house area.
It does cool but it would never be as efficient as a wall AC or even a window AC.
We have a ceiling fan in the bed room to circulate the cool air.
Even with a wall AC in the main house area, we use a stand fan to circulate the cool air.
The hose is made of wire and polypropylene. If your window gets a lot of sunlight, it will make the PP hose brittle over time. Mine is wrapped in aluminum insulation wrap to protect from sunlight and also to keep heat (hose gets hot) away from the room.
I clean the innards once a year - combination of long testtube tube brush to reach the coils inside, compressed air, vacuum cleaner and steam cleaner.
I clean the top and bottom filters every few weeks though I’ve added a nylon screen (the kind used for magnetic mosquito screens) because original filters have bigger holes.
A portable AC is good enough for when you can’t use a window AC or don’t have/can’t have a hole in your wall to use a wall AC.
Be careful if you have high humidity. The water tray could overflow and you may get a puddle on the floor. The unit unusually comes with a tubing you can attach to the unit and the other end dripping in a bucket. I never installed the tubing. I just placed my AC on a bin lid. So far, in 11 yrs, the AC hasn’t dropped water on to the lid.
