Window air conditioners can be a lifesaver in the middle of summer. Sure, I am writing this article in January but I can assure you ladies and gentlemen that I can remember the heat of July and August. You see, I am from Kansas and if you didn’t know it it gets pretty darn hot here during the summer. On some of the more severe summers we get four, five, or even six weeks straight of one-hundred degree temperatures. Don’t worry though, at night it falls down to a balmy eighty-five degrees.
Here in Kansas, and I can imagine elsewhere, there is a huge market for air conditioning. I don’t care if it’s in your car, your office, your home, or even your tractor. (Yes, they have that in tractors.) The need for air conditioning is crucial but what do you do if you move into a new home or a apartment that does not support air conditioning? What if the home is so old that there are no central ducts routed in the walls? How do you stay cool then? Well in this particular scenario you have two choices and almost everyone chooses option B.
A) Pay a contractor to retrofit your entire home so that it can handle a central air conditioning system. This involves not only installing inbound ducts but also outbound. They tear apart your walls and make one hell of a mess.
B) The other option is window air conditioners. They’re simple and most of the time they’re cheap, at least when compared to the big central air systems out there. All you have to do is buy the unit, pop it in your window, secure it, plug it in, and presto! You now have cold air and relief from the summer’s sun.
Considerations
Now when you decide to buy a window unit and you begin looking at the different brands and sizes out there you may begin to feel overwhelmed. There are SO many choices out there. How can you be sure that you pick the right one?
I’m not going to get into every little consideration to make when buying a window unit in this article. Instead, I wrote a window air conditioner buyer’s guide that takes you through the steps of what to look for and how to prepare to buy a window air conditioner. This buyer’s guide can be found by clicking here. This guide should answer any question that you would have on air conditioner. If you feel like I missed something please feel free to reach out to me by clicking here to let me know.
Window Air Conditioners Under Two-Hundred Dollars
Let me start this off with saying that finding a window air conditioner under two-hundred dollars is going to be a hard find. Yes, there are some out there but these units are designed to cool smaller rooms. So, you can get a window unit for under two-hundred dollars but it is not going to cool your entire home or even apartment for that mater. It will cool an average sized bedroom or office. These types of air conditioners are mainly used for cooling bedrooms during the night which allows the user to get a peaceful night sleep without waking up to the heat. These window units fall into the 5,000-6,000 BTU size range.
The 5,000-6,000 BTU range are meant to cool a one-hundred to two-hundred and fifty square foot room. Our best picks in this size range that are under two-hundred dollars are listed below:
- Option 1 – Frigidaire FFRA0511R1 5, 000 BTU
- The Frigidaire FFRA0511R1 is a great and easy buy for people who just want relief from the summer’s heat. It is rated to cool up to one-hundred and fifty square feet. This is a cheaper and rather simple unit but I can assure you that it gets the job done. With over two-thousand reviews on Amazon.com and an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars you cannot go wrong with this unit.
- Option 2 – Frigidaire FFRE0533Q1 5,000 BTU
- The Frigidaire FFRE0533Q1 is a bit higher in price then our previous model but with that higher price you get a lot more features that simply just weren’t there on the first choice. With this product you get an electronic display and controls that displays the temperature of the room real time. Along with that you get a fully functional remote control. While this product is at the very top of our two-hundred dollar budget I can assure you that it is worth it.
- The Frigidaire FFRE0533Q1 is a bit higher in price then our previous model but with that higher price you get a lot more features that simply just weren’t there on the first choice. With this product you get an electronic display and controls that displays the temperature of the room real time. Along with that you get a fully functional remote control. While this product is at the very top of our two-hundred dollar budget I can assure you that it is worth it.
UPDATE 2021 – the above items are no longer sold, so check out window air conditioners under $200 on Amazon
Conclusion
While the above units are great air conditioners I will caution you again that these units are only meant to cool rooms around one-hundred and fifty square feet. They are not meant for cooling living rooms, larger master bedrooms, or large apartments. If you try then your unit will be running constantly trying to keep up. This results in larger energy bills and a never quite cool room. If you need something bigger then you are going to have pay more, check out our full ‘What Are The Best Window Air Conditioner,’ article by clicking here.
This article lists every air conditioner size out there.
Lastly, as I write this article in January of 2018 the prices on these two recommended units are under two-hundred dollars. Please be aware that these prices can change at any time and may in fact go up or down as time progresses.