Guwahati, June 27 -- Buying a portable air conditioner can be a great way to keep a room or small home comfortable during the summer heat. Portable air conditioners are affordable, and they're fairly easy to set up since you don't need to hoist the heavy unit up to a window or cut a hole through a wall.

Owning a portable air conditioner does have a slight drawback, though, in that maintenance can be a little difficult since you don't have unrestricted access to the coils. You can keep a window air conditioner clean by taking it outside and hosing it down, but that's difficult to do with a portable air conditioner because the plastic outer shell is designed to be difficult to remove. Eventually, the unit is going to smell a bit musty, and...