So, a while back, the Air Conditioner in the guest house stopped working, and I need some advice...
It's actually a heat pump, installed into a window. It basically just has a slider between hot and cold, and two fan settings for heater and a/c. The heater part works fine, but when I try to slide over to "cold" and turn on the air conditioner, the compressor won't turn on. The fan will just blow stale air. As it's starting to get hot back home, getting this thing fixed has become imperative. I've had it for a few years, so I would think that the warranty is up. I don't have the specs, but i'll post them once I get them. The pain in the ass is compounded by the fact that I'm still overseas, and trying to deal with this indirectly through my relatively clueless relatives.
I've briefly talked to the A/C guys who installed it, and they said that it would be better to replace than fix it. I'm not sure if that's true, since the unit I have was not cheap, and it still technically works (at least during the winter). I'm beginning to wonder if it's not just a simple problem with the control panel; if the unit was actually busted, then wouldn't both functions be disabled?
What do you think?
Also, as a bit of an aside, I'm looking to get a small portable unit for mid-sized rooms in the house, since that as yet has no A/C installed. I've been looking at
this one and
this one, but I know very little about the brands themselves. Any suggestions? Would a 7-9k BTU unit be sufficient?