Dimplex DC17 / DC18
Verified15 reviews
No problems, reliable, convenient, has limitations – This is our second Dimplex portable air-conditioner, bought to replace a defunct split system. There have been no major problems - I think that the quality is high. The evaporative function works quite well. In the humidity of Newcastle, I have seldom needed to drain the internal drip-tray. The timer setting is a must. Once installed, it… Read more · 2
goes without saying that a portable air-conditioner is definitely not portable, it is a fixture. Some people's complaints may come from not realising that the exhaust tube has to be attached permanently to a window, and that the window has to be shut, and all the leaks have to be sealed (as described by many reviewers). That is par for the course.
It takes some practice to learn how best to operate the unit. For instance, start it before the day gets hot, while the heat transfer to the outside air is still effective. Otherwise, it will not cool a large area that is already hot already hot (hot ceiling and windows), and it will also be trying to pump heat out into even hotter external air - against a large thermal gradient.
Set the fan speed to Auto, as it will initially operate at maximum capacity initially to bring down the room temperature.
For economy , initially set the desired temperature to just 2 degrees below ambient temperature. Keep a thermometer in a window to help.
In our home, Once the ceiling and windows became hot, no air-conditioner could cool down the room itself, and one could only stay cool by keeping in the stream of cool air from the unit.
One feature which would have improved this, would be a sideways-oscillating air stream. The air stream is too narrow for a large room. I had to aim the whole unit to point at an angle across the room, to cover the high-usage areas.
The remote controller is easy to use. I have attached Velcro dots to the remote-controller and the top of the unit, so that the remote can always be kept on the unit while operating. When not in use, the RC goes inside the cool-air outlet.
Like all portable units, once the compressor turns on, the noise is disturbing. It sounds like more than 56 dB. I suspect that the quoted SPLis for the fan only, without the compressor running. Used in a large ding room - lounge room - office area of at least 24 m2, I could only tolerate the noise for an hour or two at a time, so I always set the timer to 2 hours at a time. It drowns out background music and the noise level is tiring when working at a desk. However, it does not interfere with speech.
Installation definitely requires care with sealing the exhaust tube, at bothends. I used silicone sealer to seal the base of the tube, and it still leaked hot air. I ended up stuffing the base with terry towelling, as tape is difficult to apply there. I used silicone sealer to at the window end, which worked well.
The thin exhaust tube wastes a lot of power, by conducting heat back into the room. I lagged it by wrapping it in fabric - initially in terry towelling, later in padded sheet-and-matress protectors - which need taping up to stay in place.
Work with the fact that the unit is constantly pumping air out of the house, and thus drawing outside air into the room. Somewhere in the house, there must be a chinked window to allow a little air to come in. This means that you will not suffocate. The cool air runs down the floor, so you can set a fan to blow the cool air from the doorway, down the passage into another living area. Use a draft excluder on the front door, to prevent the cool air from getting lost outside ; or allow the cool air to run down the passage and cool it.
Our other Dimplex portable unit is still going strong in a large bedroom, after 13 years. P
DIMPLEX DC17 portable A/C – Never had an issue with mine. This was in a large bedroom and office (3.6×7m) with raked ceilings and pretty average insulation. Unit was easy to use and it certainly made working and sleeping in hot, humid Qld weather no problem at all :) Show details · 1
Horrible – We are paying this of and only used three times keeps over heating and you get the run around to get it fixed they should take it of the market cause it’s crap Show details
Good but has some flaws! – I purchased this air conditioner nearly two years ago, it is a good system, but you really need to make everything air tight, you have to block under the doors, to stop the negative air flow, and the machine itself isn't air tight where the hose meets the machine, it isn't air tight and blows out hot air, the hose isn't of the best quality it's… Read more · 1
abit flimsy, and also it's very expensive to run, but for it size and for what it is, its worth the bit of extra work, as it does take the edge off.
"Impressively Cool" – Just received my Dimplex DC-18 a few days ago and assembled the window slider and unfortunately it was 10 inches to short. I rang dimplex and they said it only comes in one size only, so i had to organise to get it retro fitted to my sliding window, also best to get rubber insulation for the sides so its a snug fit as you slide your window.… Read more · 1
Used a little bit of white gaffer tape to block out a few gaps when the hose is connected to the slide mount. The remote control was faulty numerical digit number was broken and showed lines..Dimplex replaced it with another-"Great Customer Service" response was very quick and courteous..Apart from this my Dimplex had cooled my 7x4 metre kitchen within 15 minutes at 22d. The dimplex fan oscillator also encouraged the cool air to circulate throughout the room.."Bring on Summer"! :-)
Horrible – Only a few months old a d the cooling function has gone in it. We hgave been told to rake it back to where we brought it but it will not fit in our car! Still trying to work out what to do with it. We have slate floors and they are a bit rough.. hubby was pushing it from the loungeroom to the bedroom and the wheels snapped on it. We were waking up… Read more
multiple times a night to empty the little water thing as it just floods and goes everywhere otherwise and everytime it kicks in and out we get woken up.
Saviour on a hot day regardless of its noise! – It cools down our living room and bedroom quickly. Not hard at all to move the unit around the house on a super hot day as they are on castors! Easy to uninstall / install and operate. It can be a bit noisy unless you're not bothered by it! No issue so far and still going! Show details
Either a terrible air con or a faulty model – I tried this in both a large and small area both were dismal. A few seconds of cold air then acts like a fan blowing warmish air and does not dehumidify, so bad I question any positive reviews.It has been unusable as is perhaps a faulty model I will try to return with warranty.BUYER BEWARE will post warranty return outcome. Show details
Love my new Portable Air Conditioner – Bought a Dimplex Portable Air Conditioner for this summer & found it very easy 2 setup,the manual is easy to follow,instructions are simple & we have quite a large area which the Dimplex Air Con cools with no trouble. I havent had an eletricity bill yet,only had it a month so pricing still to see. Im very happy with my purchase & would definitly… Read more
recommend it to others. The unit isnt very loud,no more than a normal fans noise,very modern stylish design too.
Too good to be true – Our house is an older house that was built back in the war for army families. It also doesn't have insulation in most of the walls, so summer gets extremely hot. Other air conditioning we have tried are nothing compared to the Dimplex. It actually brings the temperature down and cools the whole room and brings relief to the weather. It is a little noisy but the fact that it works great makes up for it. Show details
Not that great – The unit is relatively portable but is quite loud - unless the weather is sweltering it's not worth the effort of sleeping through the noise the unit makes. To be honest, we bought it when it was so hot we just couldn't stand it anymore, so we were a bit desperate. I would say it's really no better than a fan UNLESS you fill it with ice cold water and a couple of freezer blocks. When you do this it's pretty good. Show details
Self Evaporative, my foot!!! – Just bought a new Dimplex DC18 5.3kw today to replace my 3 year old 3.5kw portable air conditioner from a different company that is no longer cooling to capacity and unfortunately the old unit seemed like it was cooling better at 3 years old and half the wattage. The new one does cool but I wouldn't say efficiently or effectively. The most… Read more
annoying thing is that I was attracted to the dimplex DC18 because I was moving into a bigger room so I figured that I needed more wattage plus the new room is harder for me to run drainage hoses so the supposedly self evaporative function was very appealing to me until the unit shut off within half an hour of running in turbo mode due to a E4 error (full water tank) and then again within 2 hours of running it at medium speed at 24 degrees Celsius. So I had to rig up a bodgy drainage system by putting the portable air conditioner on top of a bedside table putting a bucket under it and putting a pipe in the drainage plug and letting it drain out as the units running otherwise I was going to have to drain the unit every 2 hours. So far I'm very disappointed with my purchase and am considering going back to my old unit since it seemed to cool the room better.
I'm going to give the unit another 24 - 48 hours and if I'm still not happy with it, I'll be returning it to the store that I bought it from.
Hi Shane - Thank you for your comments in relation the… Read more
Great for what an air conditioner needs to do – So I paid a premium but worth every cent based of the slim design and strong airconditioning!! Sound is a little loud but it's not loud that you cannot sleep through it as it does what an aircon needs to do !!!! Cool down my 33sqm investment property!!!! Great for a window unit.. hey, at least the tenants will use the turbo function to cool the… Read more · 1
unit down and switch it off with a timer if they find it to be loud.. it's bearable aircon loud by perhaps 1decibal so do not be turned down by the word loud!!
I had it for 3 months now and it's going strong!!
Oh plus i do not need to drain it and it has a humidifying tech as well ..
Buy it if it's around 850$ Aus mark.. otherwise it's not worth in my opinion :)
Cheers
Find out how Dimplex DC17 / DC18 compares to other Portable Air Conditioners
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Easy to setup and use – The unit was very easy to setup and get going, the window kit needs some sealing tape around the edges to create a proper seal. When not in use the unit is easy to pack up and store. Was a little disappointed in the performance of cooling down my living area but it is an exceptionally by area, the unit does do its best to bring the temperature down. Show details · 1
Much better than expected – This review is for the Dimplex DC18 5.3kw - but I had to put it here in the DC15 section as the DC18 is not listed on this review site. We recently purchased the Dimplex DC18 for my daughters bedroom in Jan 2017. We live in Melbourne (currently renting so split system unfortunately was not an option) and this week has been over 30 every day,… Read more · 1
yesterday 35 and today 38. Our house is a old Victorian style house with 3.3m high ceilings - stays cool for longer, but still no match for long Australian summer heat spells, and once hot, they're terribly hard to cool. Being an old house, it also has the associated energy inefficient gaps and cracks that need to be filled in order to optimise the cooling/heating efforts. My daughters room is 3m x 5m (over 50 cubic metres of space).
After speaking with many salespersons and reading endless reviews we finally bit the bullet and bought a portable air con, knowing it would not be as efficient as a split system and likely would be very noisy. Even though it isn't a large space, we were recommended a unit of 4kw or greater, with the sales people basically saying you need to over estimate or else it will be ineffective.
We got a great deal on the system so that made the decision a little easier ($499 at the good guys - rrp of over $1100 and on sale elsewhere for $899, so very happy to give it a try).
So far our experience has been very good.
Yes it's noisy, but no more so than a large fan on high (80db in front of the system, same as 2m away from a 45cm fan blowing straight at you) and as it is a steady noise it can be on when sleeping.
However, the system cools so effectively we did not have to keep it on overnight.
On the first 35 degree day, the room reached 29 degrees. Once installing and turning on the system, the room fell to 22 degrees within 50 minutes.
Today is 38. Had the system run for an hour to get the room temperature down from 26 to 20 degrees.
There are some extra efforts required to get the maximum benefit out of the unit (but likely the same would be required of ANY portable system):
1) The hose out the window does not make a vacuum seal with the window and do some tape is needed to ensure the hot air being blown out use does not come back in.
2) The hose connection to the system is not 100% air tight so again, some tape to seal the gaps works a treat.
3) We have the wind out windows that require those really ordinary CoolSeal products to be installed, which are basically rubbish, but a necessity. The CoolSeal would not adhere properly to the window frame, so again, out comes the tape to ensue no gaps.
4) Put a snake under the door to stop any draft/cool air escaping.
5) Use the system often for short bursts to keep the room at a temperature of 25 and under - makes it much easier to manage the heat effecively.
Overall we have been extremely satisfied with the product to date. Comes with a 2 year warranty (but we up rchased a 3 year full replacement warranty for an extra $68 just in case) for peace of mind. After reading reviews of portable systems i was very against getting one at all due to the number of terrible reviews and experiences. However my experience with this unit has been great.
I would say to those wondering whether or not to get one - do it. They're worth it. However I would recommend:
1) get a bigger system than required (may be more expensive but a small system will basically be an expensive fan); and
2) Take the time and effort to properly seal the room you're trying to cool.
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Hello Deb Assuming the following> *that the unit is set… Read more