14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioners

The actual cooling capacity of a 14,000 BTU portable air conditioner is often much less than 14,000 BTUs.

The most efficient 14,000 BTU units have an actual cooling capacity closer to 12,000 BTUs. The least efficient 14,000 BTU units have an actual cooling capacity closer to 7,700 BTUs – almost half of the claimed BTUs.

How does this happen?

The problem is that portable AC units are inherently inefficient. They provide a complete AC system in one compact portable package which makes them very convenient to use, but that convenience comes at the cost of two major inefficiencies.

The first inefficiency is their ducting. A portable AC unit absolutely has to intake air to cool its warmer components. This air gets heated up (as its cooling the components) and has to be removed from the room that the air conditioner is actively working to cool.

The heated air is removed via a large diameter plastic duct. As the heated air travels through this duct (to be exhausted outside) it heats up the duct. The large surface area (most portable AC units use a 5 inch diameter hose) and thin plastic construction of the duct readily radiates heat back into the room the portable AC unit is actively working to cool.

The second major portable AC inefficiency also has to do with its removal of warm air from the room it's actively working to cool. This removal of air creates an area of low pressure inside the room. This causes higher pressure hot outdoor air to get sucked into the room by any means it can find – through air gaps in windows, etc.

In the past, portable AC cooling capacity was measured in very forgiving conditions. Hence why the commonly specified 14,000 BTUs of cooling capacity for 14,000 BTU units is so much higher than their actual cooling capacity.

The Department of Energy recognized this trend and wanted to do something about it. So they compromised with portable AC manufacturers to come up with a new standard for determining cooling capacity. This new standard is a much better representation of the actual cooling capacity of portable AC units.

The new standard is called Seasonally Adjusted Cooling Capacity – SACC.

SACC = ACC₉₅ × 0.2 + ACC₈₃ × 0.8

In which

ACC₉₅ = Capacity_SD − Q_{duct_SD} − Q_{infiltration_95}
ACC₈₃ = Capacity_SD − Q_{duct_SD} − Q_{infiltration_83}

Thus, SACC not only takes into account heat added via ducting (Q_duct) and heat added by warm outdoor air getting sucked into the room due to pressure differences (Q_infiltration), but it also

• does so at two different outdoor temperatures - 95° F (ACC₉₅) and 83° F (ACC₈₃) and
• puts 20% of the weight of the score at 95° F (ACC₉₅ × 0.2) and 80% of the score at 83° F (ACC₈₃ × 0.8)

The score is weighted in this way to reflect what the DOE believes to be the average use case for a portable AC unit – that it will be used at temperatures closer to 83° F the majority (80%) of the time and temperatures closer to 95° F in brief stints (20%) – such as during a temporary heat wave.

Your particular use case may not be accurately reflected here – you may be planning on using the AC unit at altogether different temperatures. Regardless, SACC is a much more accurate benchmark for actual cooling capacity. It certainly is a massive improvement over the inflated BTU numbers used in the past.

The table below shows the SACC BTUs of the most popular 14,000 BTU portable AC units on the market.

*We tested an older version of the Whynter ARC-14S with a SACC of only 8,900 BTUs.

Note how most of these models have exactly the same number of BTUs – 14,000 – under old guidelines for specifying cooling capacity.

In the past, this is the only cooling capacity data you would have available to you to make a purchase decision. And that decision would be very difficult to make, because most of these models have the same traditional cooling capacity of 14,000 BTUs.

Today, you have one additional tool to use – seasonally adjusted cooling capacity.

Looking at the table above it’s clear that the Midea Duo cools much better than the Black + Decker BPACT14WT, for example.

Why? Because its SACC – a value that represents its actual cooling capacity quite well – is much higher.

General Recommendations

Our own testing showed a massive difference in performance between 12,000 SACC BTU units, 10,000 SACC BTU units, and <10,000 SACC BTU units.

Units with less than less than (<) 10,000 BTUs (SACC) cooled the test environment (an approx. 100 sq. ft. space) very slowly and couldn’t achieve a truly cold environment (the best they could do was a room temperature of about 76° F) even after a few hours of run time.

Units with 10,000 BTUs of seasonally adjusted cooling capacity (SACC) cooled the test environment reasonably quickly and were able to get room temperature down to 72° F within an hour even at very high outdoor temperatures (91° F).

12,000 SACC BTU units cooled the best. They cooled the 100 sq. ft. test room extremely quickly and were able to lower room temperature down to 65° F after one hour (also at an outdoor temp. of 91° F).

Generally, we recommend you buy a 12,000 SACC BTU unit, even for a relatively small room (our test room, again, was only 100 sq. ft.).

The lowest SACC BTU unit we would recommend is a 10,000 SACC BTU unit.

Read more about our testing in our general buyer's guide.

14,000 BTU Units Ranked

Almost all 14,000 BTU units have very similar

The best models have higher actual cooling capacity (SACC), better energy efficiency, are easier to install, and are a good value.

The Midea Duo and Whynter ARC-1230WN immediately stand out as having the most actual cooling capacity (SACC BTUs) in the category.

Remember, portable AC units are inherently inefficient appliances. All portable AC units are underpowered. And so the Midea and Whynter being the most powerful portable AC units you can buy gives you the best chance to properly cool

• a fairly large space
• a challenging space – e.g. a room in a climate where it gets over 90° F quite often or a room that’s on a second story (heat naturally rises so second story rooms are naturally hotter)

Buying any one of the lower SACC 14,000 BTU units on the market does not give you the best chance to cool these types of spaces.

The Midea and Whynter are also highly energy efficient.

The table below lists the CEER (combined energy efficiency ratio - energy efficiency on all modes) and the SACC/watts ratio (energy efficiency only on each unit's cooling mode) for the most popular 14,000 BTU units on the market.

Note how energy efficiency increases with seasonally adjusted cooling capacity (SACC).

The Midea and Whynter have the most cooling capacity and are the most energy efficient portable AC units on the market.

Because their cooling capacity is so high, they're also a good value (we use SACC/$ to evaluate value), despite their high price.

Both the Midea and Whynter also feature above average build quality, high airflow (which allows them to project cold air over longer distances), and an extensive weather stripping and insulation kit (which, upon installation, further maximizes each unit's cooling capacity).

These features, on top of their market-leading cooling capacity and energy efficiency make the Midea Duo and Whynter ARC-1230WN the two best 14,000 BTU portable air conditioners we've tested.

If you have to choose between the two, we would pick the Midea over the Whynter because it comes with a more extensive window installation kit. The Midea comes with five window panels, four of which are a different length. This allows the Midea to be installed into a wide variety of windows without requiring you to cut any of the panels. The Whynter comes with only three equal length panels, and so you're much more likely to need to cut one of the Whynter's panels for installation.

If you don't have the budget for the Midea or the Whynter, we recommend the Frigidaire FHPC142AA1. It still has 10,000 SACC BTUs and decent energy efficiency, and it's usually much less expensive than our top two picks. It's the best value 14,000 BTU portable AC unit on the market.

The top five 14,000 BTU portable air conditioners we've tested:

• 1. Midea Duo (MAP14S1TBL)
• 2. Whynter ARC-1230WN
• 3. Frigidaire FHPC142AA1
• 4. LG LP1025WHSM
• 5. Whirlpool WHNP141AW