One More Gadget

Introducing the Garrison 3-in-1 Portable Air Conditioning Unit, complete with 9000 BTUs.

It’s summer. It’s hot. No wait, scratch that. It’s very hot. If you are experiencing conditions like most, you’re experiencing the type of apartment heat that only a top floor unit with windows instead of walls and an evil smoking neighbor that may have found the secret to actually blowing air upward and sideways, feels like. Of course, with 3,792 smoking attempts per day, who wouldn’t have mastered the angular stench blow?

So what other option do you have than to go out immediately and get the first portable air conditioning unit you can find. It’s literally the only option you have since most fans just blow. That’s what I did. I was tired of walking around naked with a wet towel wrapped around my head.

So I went to Canadian Tire. I dropped $400 on some sweet sweet coolness to beat the heat.

One More Gadget wanted to share some information to the masses but our anonymous review was rejected from the Canadian Tire website for being too cold-hearted, so here it is, for your viewing pleasure: Brace yourself, it’s long winded and full of hot air.

Let me start off by saying this air conditioner hasn’t just made me hate this one, it has made me hate all portable air conditioners on the face of the planet. If the horrible box design, created without handles and the ability to completely dismantle upon contact was any indication of what you are in store for, enjoy.

Whatever genius came up with the idea to call this 65 pound beast ‘portable’ is probably the same a-hole that crammed that extra seat next to the toilets on airplanes. This thing is so big it should really be found in the furniture section between the wardrobes and those freakishly huge bed frames that no one ever buys except maybe that lady from bed knobs and broomsticks.

I personally would love to resell fridges with huge wheels on the bottom and tell suckers with warm food that it will not only cool their food, it’s also portable.

Anyway. These portability devices, aka wheels, left grease marks all over my carpet. Just thought I’d mention that.

And when I plugged in this machine I almost had a heart attack. It actually sounds like a lawn mower (more like a dryer, but on tumble dry no less). I researched and found (Canadian Tire) claiming this device was a soft 54db. Let’s compare this to 50db which is a quiet suburb, or 60db which is background music, or a ‘good’ air conditioning unit heard at 100ft. Sounds good right? Well no my friends, this “54db” is actually 68 decibels!

To put that in perspective the average level for your household vacuum cleaner is 70 db.

But forget about finding that on the Garrison website. That website doesn’t exist. In fact, actual evidence that Garrison is even a company at all is completely in question. There is a toll free number, but who’d want to call that? If the manual, riddled with Chinglish and nonsensical diagrams, is any indication of what you’d be dealing with you are better off returning it to the store. Unless of course you bought it at CT, which has a no return policy on all portable AC’s. Ouch.

So really, what makes this and all portable air conditioners so bad in our humble opinion?

The ‘portability’? The price? The no-return policies? The lack of actual brand names and reputations? The noise levels? How about the drain spout that’s usually too low to actually drain into anything without having to lift the machine and destroy your back injuring your sciatic nerve landing you in hospital for 2 months? How about that lanky hot vent hose that has to be stuck out your window causing you to still have your window open and deal with Mr. Angular Stench Blow?

Well it’s all of that. Portable AC’s are the worst.

But, if you are desperate, and in this situation, you have no other alternatives really, or do you?

Nope.

Buy the best fans online right here.