Best to Be Cool and Dry, But Better Hot Than Sticky
Written: Jun 26 '01 (Updated Jun 26 '01)
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Pros: Even more effective than its size leads you to expect.
Cons: Heavy.
The Bottom Line: Except for the two days out of the year on which we install and uninstall the R908X, Mrs. Sloucho and I are pleased with the unit.
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| Sloucho's Full Review: Sharp Air Conditioner AF-R908X |
Of Sweat and Sweltering
One of the least pleasant ways to be distracted from the movie you're watching is to be peed on by your table.
Mrs. Sloucho and I know that it's time to install our air conditioning units when the table on which we store our drinks while watching movies collects enough condensation to micturate on our legs.
I've seen that idiotic stand-up routine in which Jerry Seinfeld mocks the people who contend that the heat in Phoenix isn't so bad because its a "dry heat." If, like Jerry Seinfeld, you think there's no real difference between the dry heat of Arizona and the sticky heat of the East Coast, then you're probably only interested in how cold the air is that comes out of an air conditioner.
As for me, however, I'm always concerned about an A/C's capacity for dehumidification. I want to be cooler, of course. But I also have this crazy hang-up about staying dry. What impresses me most about the Sharp AF-R908X is not so much the fact that it keeps my living room cool, but that it manages to dehumidify the entire first floor of my house.
The Mobility-impaired Machine
I don't understand anything about air conditioners or how they work. I only know that my Sharp AF-R908X is an 8500 BTU A/C that certainly feels as if it weighs more than twice as much as my Sharp AF-R509X, which is a 5000 BTU machine [1]. Whether it weighs twice as much as the smaller model or not, it's fairly heavy and extremely awkward. I dread the summer day when I bring it up from the basement and the fall day when I have to take it back down. (I'm 5'11" tall, 175 pounds, and freakishly sedentary. But I can't imagine that a healthy male specimen would find this A/C easy to install.)
The Assembly
Unlike the smaller model mentioned above, the R908X requires some assembly after purchase. Because the instructions are very poorly written, you may get the idea that you are supposed to remove the silver insulation that is attached to the compressor. Be forewarned that to remove this silver insulation is to break your machine and that the salesman at the place where you bought your air conditioner will think that you are a complete idiot when you return with your broken machine to explain that you think you made a boo-boo.
So long as you forgo the temptation to rip off the insulation that is better left where the manufacturer put it, however, it isn't too terribly difficult to put the unit into its casing.
8500 BTUs in action
The reason that Mrs. Sloucho and I had to purchase such a large unit for our living room (which is only 15' X 14') is that our rooms downstairs are not partitioned. The living room is divided from the dining room by the stairway, which does a terrible job of keeping the air on one side or another. We tried painting demons with mean faces on the stairway to frighten the air of the dining room from approaching the living room, but our demons must not have been very scary, as the air was no more reluctant to move from room to room after we did the painting than it was before.
Since our dining room is the same size as our living room and there is no door at the top of the stairway, our R908X has to contend with the warm air of a room that is essentially 30' X 14' and a stairway that I'm not measuring for the sake of an amateur review such as this.
The R908X does an excellent job of cooling the living room, which isn't surprising, since that's where it's installed. But even if it doesn't make the dining room deliciously cool, it takes enough moisture out of the air downstairs that our entire first floor is comfortable.
The Noise
I don't know why Sharp sells me different air conditioning units than they sell everyone else. I wrote the second review of the R509X and contended that the machine was reasonably quiet even though the only other review on the site said it was loud. Now I find myself writing the second review of the R908X and obliged to contend, once again, that my machine is reasonably quiet despite another reviewer's assertion that it is inaudible.
The Control Panel
Despite being a rather sophisticated piece of machinery (though I confess that to my unmechanical mind, a pencil is a fairly sophisticated piece of machinery), the R908X is astonishingly simple to operate. It's easy to program the machine to turn on at a specific time of day so that the house can be cool, for instance, as soon as you come home from work. Unfortunately, Mrs. Sloucho and I are unable to use this feature, as the demons on the stairway become frightened by machines that turn themselves on.
More importantly, the machine features a thermostat and shuts itself off once it has cooled the room to the temperature that the user has selected. Virtually all of the features on the control panel can be operated via the remote control that is included with the unit. I don't understand the purpose of the remote (particularly in conjunction with an air conditioner that regulates itself with a thermostat). I used to think that it was perverse for Sharp to manufacture remote controls with their air conditioning units. But I recently discovered that universal remote manufacturers are including air conditioner codes for the high-end universal remotes. Now that's perverse.
Final Thoughts
Except for the two days out of the year on which we install and uninstall the R908X, Mrs. Sloucho and I are pleased with the unit. But we're not pleased with the fact that it apparently sells for nearly a hundred dollars less than what we paid for it. Where do I go to write a review about rampant overcharging at a retail chain (American Appliance) that has gone bankrupt?
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[1] My review of the Sharp AF-R509X can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_27410468484/tk_~CB003.1.38
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
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Epinions.com ID:
Sloucho
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Member: Mike Davis
Location: Philadelphia
Reviews written: 199
Trusted by: 248 members
About Me:
Read my reviews in order to heal the sick and control the weather. Seriously.
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