I was looking to buy a house on a budget. This was a few years ago, when the market was working in favor of the buyer, not the seller. WIth such a small budget I knew I had to find a fixer-upper that I could renovate myself. I wound up with a modest two-story ranch house on a small plot of land outside of town. It needed a lot of work, and a lot of TLC, but I was committed to making it work. One thing that worried me was the advanced age of the central air conditioning system. I could handle a lot of repairs myself, but I didn’t know how to remove the old HVAC system or install a new one. Since I was living alone at the time, I decided to just move on with the other repairs and not worry about the HVAC system. I had done some research at local stores, and found that portable air conditioners could be found for under two hundred dollars. If push came to shove and the old HVAC system completely died on me, then a quick trip to Walmart would temporarily solve my problem. I understand that a portable air conditioner is only strong enough to cool down one room, and is not a permanent solution for my home’s cooling issues. At the same time, having access to portable cooling is a great stop-gap measure that will buy me enough time to think of a real solution. I just want to have a contingency plan so I don’t have to go a long time without A/C.