Portable Air Conditioning, Cooling and Heating Units in London and the South East

At Chilly Pepper Hire, we like to make things as easy as possible for you to manage the temperature of your indoor space. That’s why we provide a hassle-free, jargon-busting guide to make choosing the right unit even easier. Our online help provides all the answers to the most common questions, and when you’re ready to hire, you can use our ‘3 Easy Steps‘ guide to find the perfect portable air conditioning unit to match your requirements.

3 Easy Steps

Getting Started - Which Type of Unit Should I choose?

Hose Type (air-to-air and mono)

The hose type cooler is by far the most common, with about 85% of the office market in London choosing this unit. With this unit, there are no water bottles to empty, but a window, doorway or false ceiling is required to vent the hot air. Hose type coolers can run 24 hours per day unattended, making them ideal for offices and server rooms. Hose type units are also known as “air to air” units because the moisture created during operation is evaporated and blown into the hose with the hot air. In other types of hose units, the moisture is collected in a bucket. Systems with internal buckets have a safety feature to prevent over-filling, but the bucket must be manually emptied. For external bucket systems, a pipe takes the waste away with no need for manual emptying.

Split Type

A split type is similar to a hose type, but often more powerful. Instead of expelling the hot air using an air hose, the unit has a small box connected to the main indoor unit by a small flexible pipe. The box can be hung out of a window or fixed onto an exterior wall with the pipe fed through a hole. The moisture is pumped through the flexible pipe to the outside, and this system can run unattended 24 hours per day. Split type units generally require a great deal more involved installation than portable hose type units. Please contact us if you need more information about this type of unit.

Water Based (evaporative cooler)

Water evaporative units work using the principle of evaporative cooling. The units have an internal tank that needs to be topped up with water approximately every 2 to 5 days. There is no hose or external box, meaning water evaporative units are completely self-contained. This type of unit can create some humidity, meaning it can only be used in areas with lots of natural ventilation. The unit’s capacity to cool depends on the humidity; the lower the humidity, the better the cooling effect.

Helpful Terminology

• Air-to-Air unit: a ‘hose type’ unit where moisture created from the incoming air is evaporated and blown into an external hose, together with the hot air, and often vented through an open window.
• Mono unit: a ‘hose type’ unit with an internal water bucket or bottle which, as a result of moisture produced by the cooling process, requires emptying anywhere between every 4 and 24 hours depending on humidity levels and other external factors.
• Bottle or bucket type: another name for a mono unit.
• BTUs / Kw: BTU refers to British Thermal Units and Kw to Kilowatts. On average, each person in an office requires 4,000 BTUs to keep cool; a standard portable unit provides 8,000 BTUs or 2.34 KW (1,000 watts = 1 Kw = 3,418 BTUs).
• Defeat the heat: to create a consistently cool temperature across your entire indoor space you must “defeat the heat”, for example if you need 15,000 BTUs of cooling power, you will require 2 x 8,000 BTU machines. One unit of 8- 12,000 BTUs will not suffice and will offer only ‘spot cooling’ relief.
• Spot cooling: Localised cooling that only cools the local area and has insufficient capacity to cool the entire indoor area.

Machine Specifications

Technical Specifications

Note: There are 3 types:- Hose Type, Water Based Evaporative Coolers and Splits,

SPECIFICATIONS	HOSE TYPE	WATER BASED	SPLIT TYPE
Air to air (ATA) = no water bottles to empty
Mono hose type - water bottles to empty
Water tank to "fill"
Electronic control pad
Thermostatic control
Timer
Manual control
Automatic control
Swing louvers
Dehumidifier mode
Easy installation
Quick connect couplings
Swap in / swap out hire service
Technical support