I know its a weird topic, but I live in student housing with no A/C and invited some friends over to watch a movie, but the sound of passing cars (open windows) and the fan on full speed really diminished the effect. Is there a quiet way of cooling a room/building that doesn t take involve installing an a/c?Thnx

I use an in room AC... I'm not sure how loud the more modern ones are, but the one I have is bearly acceptable for me, mine is like 15 years old now. Any louder and it would not work for the application. Sears has a decent sale on a 12K BTU right now.

I use an in room AC... I'm not sure how loud the more modern ones are, but the one I have is bearly acceptable for me, mine is like 15 years old now. Any louder and it would not work for the application. Sears has a decent sale on a 12K BTU right now.

Yep...if you dont want to install a window AC unit (your cheapest option for $200 or less), your "least" amount of installation is a portable AC unit (you can go up on Lowes, Home Depot or Amazon and keyword portable AC)....the cheapest I've seen them is around $400-$500....they are on wheels, and you just have to vent a 4" pipe outside somehow (there has to be a way for the heat to escape and not go back into the room). Good luck!

Mine vents into my crawl space. :)

Mine is like a 12K BTU, works well even with like 10 - 11 people in the theater.

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I wasn t even aware that such a thing as a portable A/C existed.

Sounds like part of the problem is thin walls and sound besides the air itself. You might want to look at seeing what you can do to reduce/sound proof the room.

I know with my room, the extra insulating I did for sound also keeps the room cooler then other rooms in the house..

I live in student housing so thats why I didn t want a "regular" air conditioner so any sort of permanent sound proofing is probably out. The cars driving by are only a problem when the windows are open, which is necessary because of the heat.

How did you sound proof your room Tom? If its something easy to (un)install then I might go for it. Especially because my roommates complain about my sub, apparently it rattles things on their shelves 2 floors down (cheap house and a 10" sub (part of HKTS 15))
TIA

maybe look into this: http://www.gmilburn.ca/ac/

Thanks Jeff.
Just picked up a $100 Danby 5000 BTU air conditioner. I know I preferred to get a portable one, but at around $400, I just couldn t do it. This one is a bit noisy but gets the job done. Thnx again to everyone.