I was in the market for a new air conditioner for my 12x15 bedroom, and upon reading the other customer reviews was sure that for the size, BTU, and price the Haier CPRB08XCJ 8000 was going to be the right fit for my needs. Upon setup and as I began using the product I ran into several issues.

The first was that the directions on setup and installation were unclear, even for such a seemingly simple process.

Secondly, while the air conditioner is said to cool a room up to 250-300 sq feet, it was struggling to cover my 180. And while it does seem to do a better job at dehumidifying than cooling, the amount of drainage from the collected water is unmanageable. The product was said to be mostly self-evaporating with a reservoir tank that will hold the excess. I was aware that the unit may need occasional drainage. I however am unable to run the unit for more than 3-4 hours before the tank is full and shuts itself off completely. Since I am using this in my bedroom... Read more

First a little info about portable ACs, then I will review the Haier 8000 BTU.

No portable will EVER match a window AC of the same BTU, so if you have the option to install a window unit, you should do so. A window unit will be cooler and use less power. Here is why:

A single hose unit means the hose will exhaust hot air thru the hose. But it needs an intake source of air - the intake will be from the room itself - so you are taking the air that you just cooled and exhausting it out the window.

Next, the exhaust hose itself as noted by other reviewers, gets very hot. As hot as a radiator in the winter.

And the AC unit itself gets hot - the portables have the entire unit inside the room so it is heating up the room. Window units have the working parts outside of the room so they don't heat up the room anywhere as much.

So now you are heating the room as well as dumping cold air out the exhaust.

This is why a portable can... Read more

I have two LG 9,000's for the bigger rooms which I LOVE but needed one a bit smaller for my babies room (the central AC is horrible at cooling upstairs!), so we got this one the other day and it is perfect. You don't need to drain it so I don't know what the previous review was talking about. It is self - evaporating and uses it's own water cond. to cool itself. The window mount it much better then my LG's too. It's a very stylish and a small box AC that works wonderful and keeps me less stressed at night worrying about the comfort of my 18 month old at night. I have a thermostat reading in my room that tells me the temp in his room and this AC keep it exactly at what I wanted it to. Love it so far and recommend for sure!