Portable Ac with heat single hose for winter heating ?

[ecomodded]

For a single hose ac add two hoses for a dual add a 2nd hose



Mount the unit so the exhaust is pointed straight out *do not use a reducer*


To move heat from the AC to the other end you will need fan and related duct.

Arrange it to suit your environment

That's a 200 cfm fan



Then sit back and enjoy heat

[jeff5may]

Originally Posted by wrangster

Hi! I have tried using a portable heat pump to heat up a 46 foot boat this winter, but my experiance hasn't been as good as yours. Here it uses way too much air, even in 2-hose mode. I guess that has a lot to do with the amount of air being much smaller in a boat. Even in 2-hose mode it blows out the double of what it sucks in, so my floors are getting icecold. I even opened it and tried to force it to suck all air from outside, by stuffing rubber foam here and there. But that only made it blow much colder inside. I have given it up for now, but I have a dream of chopping it in two and make a micro-split.

We need more information on what you have, what you are looking to make it do, and how the machine is set up and/or modified to achieve your goals. It's difficult to speculate on which way to go if we don't know where you are. As always, pictures help out immediately and immensely. If you don't have enough posts to upload pictures, just blog up some stuff in your introduction. If you don't have an introduction, post one.

The masses await your response.

[wrangster]

Sorry guys, I didn't mean to hold back on information, I just tried not to ruin other peoples treads with too much other stuff than the tread is about. I just wanted to say that my experiance was not as good as his.

Here is a link to a manual for the machine I have. Mine is called Matsui MPA12KH, and is 12000 BTU (10400 BTU on heating), but otherwise its the exact same machine in that manual.

https://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pd...bbf71f0487.pdf

The manual says that it discharges 360 m3 pr hour, and takes in 180 m3 pr hour in 2 hose mode. The 180 m3 not coming from the intake hose, is taken from the filter, the manual says. (I understand this as that the last 180 m3 comes from the top fan.) It also says that the intake hose should not be used and the intake should be blocked if the temperature outside is lower than inside temp. I tried this first, but this way it stole way to much air from the boat and the floors got really ice cold. I have the engine room just below my living room and there are 6 intakes there to handle the air the engines need. I guess thats why my floors get so cold. This way the heater worked good (gave about 45 c air) but as I said the ice cold floors ruined it.

Then I tried to use the intake hose anyway, even if the outside temperature was -5 c. That gave me about 40 c hot air, but the machine still stole too much air and the floors were still getting too cold.

Then I opened the unit and did my best to seal around the lower HX (evaporator in heat mode) to make it not take any air from the filter, but take all the air from the intake hose. This was sort of successfull, so now the machine did no longer steal too much air from the boat, but the result was that now it only managed to heat the inside air to 32 c witch is not enough to keep my boat warm. In fact this way it did not work any better than a 1000w fan heater does, maby even worse.

Both my hoses are 5". I measure temperatures by putting the outside sensor of a temp meter inside the hot air discharge. The machine plate says max power usage is around 1100 watts, but it never used more than 8-900 watts while I was testing.

I didn't take photos while doing my work, but I attached a photo now that shows how I tried to seal of the lower HX.

As I said in my first post in this tread, I am now planning to try to split the unit in 2 parts, and thereby convert it into a "micro-split" unit.

Thanks for the advise to make another intake hose, maby I would have tried this if it wasn't too late, becausae now I have allready emptied the unit of cooling media to be able to start the splitting job.

[ecomodded]

Cool your going to make a mini split from it. It will be nice having the compressor outdoors rather then in the boat. If I was to make a mini split from this portable I would mount the indoor unit in a vented box and duct the heat or cold to where its required

[jeff5may]

Ok, so if you are going to split the unit, make sure you put the larger heat exchanger outside. If it were mine, I might even find a larger size heat exchanger to do the job. A larger outdoor heat exchanger will raise your efficiency as long as it has enough airflow. Either way, I would definitely fit a txv to the outdoor heat exchanger if I changed it. I don't know if I would locate it in the engine room, since it would work against the indoor space through the floor.

Leave the cap tube on the indoor hx and decide where to locate the compressor. It all matters what mode the unit will be operating in more. If you need more heating duty than cooling, locate the compressor inside the envelope and the compressor waste heat will help warm the space. If you will be using it more for cooling, locate the compressor outdoors and the waste heat will dissipate into the outdoor air.

If you want help and/or guidance to pull off a successful custom design, start a thread about your adventures so far. This forum is full of people who can provide you with the information you need, when you need it. There is a lot to know and many decisions to consider before you get too far along in your project.

[ecomodded]

Av easy mod

Keep a single hose or dual ac (with heater ) out on the porch and vent it in
Who knows might work for years if its kept dry. Be good to try with a cheap / free one ..

edit , more thought required ..
The pressure may be too much for the fan ...

[ecomodded]

The heating season is over the numbers are in it appears the ac has payed for itself in these last 5 months of use. The duct and fan played a big part in the savings spreading the AC's heat to the house , highly recommend its use with a portable AC.

Its likely the key to the Ac's successful season.

Below the chart has last years consumption vs this years.




The two tier billing made for some good savings

First tier = 22.2kwh per day $0.0858 cents Kwh (30 days 665 kwh)

Second tier = anything over 665 Kwh per month cost $0.1287 (50% more)

2017 monthly Kwh

Dec 1900
Jan 1840
Feb 1600
March 1570
April 900

Season total = 7810 kwh minus first tier 3330 kwh = 4480 kwh 2nd tier rate

1st tier 3330 x 0.0858 cents = $285
2nd tier 4480 x 0.1287 cents = $576

Total $861 (minus taxes & fees)

2018 kwh

Dec. 1165
Jan. 960
Feb. 900
March. 738
April. 534

Season total = 4297 Kwh minus 3330 kwh = 967 kwh for tier two pricing

3330 kwh = $285
967 x $0.1287 cents =$ 125 Total = $410

$860 minus $410 = $450 saved on heating

Portable AC was $350 Fan was $80 10 inch aluminum duct cost $20 forget what I payed for the 6 inch duct I had it already.

In closing , I will likely use the ac on the hottest days of summer which will add to the yearly total. I really enjoyed using the heat pump , this winter the house was kept warmer then I would of with the electric baseboard heat.

Will post back Dec 2019 with the full years consumption Data to complete the test run.

keep happy