Hold on to your butts, comrades. We're about to get a preview of 2050. I just checked the live data, and the area off the coast of South America that is the index water for ENSO is 9° F above average in places. This is going to be a wild year.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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I live in Europe and plan to get a portable AC in winter, when hopefully prices are lower. I need one that can be installed without drilling a hole and without having to ask my landlord or even tell him about it. There are ACs exactly like that and they jumped in price first from originally about 600€ to 800€ and now 2000€+. It comes with window insulation with a small hole for the narrow hose connecting the inside to the outside part, which sits on a hanging fixture. You leave your window slightly open, but there's no air exchange because of the insulation. I really hope prices will drop. Is that naive?
one would hope the prices come down, but the common "window units" in the US just basically sit in a window.
the kind of window where the bottom half slides up. thats where you set the window unit, on the window sill, and then close the top on it. then it has some filler piece that expands to the sides to close the gaps, but you can stuff anything in there. it releases heat (using a heat pump) outside the window and cycles air from inside the house that it cools.
it can be surprising how effective they are, but one unit typically handles enough air to cool a single room. so shutting doors or hanging fabric helps.
no holes in walls are needed, and the thing plugs into an outlet inside the house.
if i were some kind of guy who had a boat load of cash, i would be filling shipping containers with them and US/EU power adapters, because an entry level, small window unit here is under $200 USD. and oftentimes, one cool room is all you need to make it through a heat wave.
If you have tilt & turn windows your only option is a mini split AC.
If you have other windows, midea has u-shaped window A/C units which may help with some window designs that typical US style window units wouldn't accommodate.
Be aware with these (don't get me wrong they are wonderfully effective and efficient, especially if you foam around the minimal openings properly) you absolutely have to tilt them properly and clean them monthly if you don't want legionnaire's disease or other mold growth.
Source: Someone that got the refund after using AI video to 'cut the cord' because it still works just fine if you clean it regularly and have it set up per the manual, but fuck corporations.
prices do typically drop in colder months, at least in my area (midwest usa). I would suggest being open to traditional window units as well as they’re typically cheaper than the kind you’re describing (and equally effective iirc). You do need to drill a couple holes into the window frame but the holes won’t even be visible when the windows closed.
Idk what landlord/rental rules are like where you live but personally I’d tell a landlord to go fuck themselves if two holes at the bottom of a window was a major issue.
I am aware these exist thanks to reading US comments on the web, but I have never ever seen one in the EU. Then again I very very rarely see windows that open like these here either.
If you can't drill / install an actual unit (with external condenser) we either have those, which are extremely inefficient energy-wise, don't work that well, and require you to have a large tube connected to the outside (so window opened with an isolation kit), or stuff like these where it's an actual AC unit with an external block - the condenser - but transportable, and you still need a cable to the outside but a much smaller one (along with an isolation kit).
Yes, I was looking at one similar to the last example. They exploded in price.
If you get the former, with the single hose, they have a really stupid design choice where they drop the second hose it needs to work properly, which makes them massively less effective. However you can easily duct tape a second hose over the heater-intake to make it work properly.
https://www.woolie.co.uk/article/convert-ac-from-single-hose-to-dual-hose/
Ahh, having just one hose for marketability is so stupid! Thanks, the pictures helped me understand at a glance how, with just one hose, air pressure inevitably must lead to warm air rushing in from somewhere if the machine is supposed to work at all, even if you close the doors and windows. It's clever to fix this terrible design flaw.