Category: House

DIY: Portable AC Dual Hose Window Vent Mount

writ­ten 6/27/25, updat­ed 6/27/25

Back to DIY Projects Page

What

A do-it-your­self sin­gle or dual hose win­dow mount­ing thing

Why

Had a portable AC unit and want­ed to mount it to the win­dow

Time and Effort

Time: ~1.5 hours

Effort: Easy-mod­er­ate

Materials and Cost

Mate­r­i­al

Foa­mu­lar XR 1“x2’x2’ Rigid Foam Board

HVAC Alu­minum Foil Tape

Dou­ble Reflec­tive Insu­la­tion 24“x10’

Cost

$9.97 (x2 for dual hose set­up)

$9.88

$11.97

TOTAL: $41.79

Option­al: Remove­able Win­dow Seal­ing Tape (~$10–12)

Note: as of this writ­ing, a dual hose win­dow kit on Ama­zon will cost you about $33.99; from Home Depot is $37.18. How­ev­er, you can also buy foam inserts that fit into them for $35.99 because, appar­ent­ly, the kits don’t keep out heat as well as you’d think.

Owned Sup­plies

Mask­ing Tape

Painter’s Tape

Tape Mea­sure

Sharpie

Scis­sors

Foam Knife

Util­i­ty Knife

Square

Vent Tem­plate

Process

Measurements

Ori­ent the AC unit and fig­ure out how hoses should be placed to fig­ure out how much of the open­ing you’ll need to fill will the vent mount. Take your mea­sure­ments which will tell you how much mate­r­i­al is need­ed.

My win­dow is 31″ x 58″ (W x H), with each open­ing about 28″. I’m work­ing with an Ecoflow Wave 3 for which the hoses have 2 slight­ly dif­fer­ent open­ing sizes. After ori­ent­ing the machine and hoses for the space avail­able, I knew that I need­ed the win­dow to be open about as much as it can be.

NOTE: For a dual hose unit, try to place the exhaust hose high­er than the intake hose since heat ris­es, and air under the hot­ter expelling air should be cool­er. For a sin­gle hose unit, you won’t need to open the win­dow as much

Materials

Gath­er any owned equip­ment, then pro­cure nec­es­sary tools and mate­ri­als (I ran out to Home Depot)

Note: My win­dow has a screen, so I left it down and placed the vent hoses on the oth­er side. If yours does not have a screen, it would prob­a­bly be a good idea to fac­tor in a mesh screen to pre­vent bugs enter­ing the hoses when not in use. Prod­ucts like Fiber­glass Mesh Rolls, or Vent Mesh Rodent/Bird Screens are options.

Fitting

With sup­plies in hand, test the Rigid Foam Board on the win­dow. Mine was best sit­ting inside the lip of the win­dow jamb. If more mate­r­i­al is need­ed, mea­sure and mark with the Sharpie. Secure the foam board in place (either low­er the win­dow onto it, or use mask­ing tape), then place each vent hose in its desired spot and trace with the Sharpie

Cutting

Time to make cuts! Depend­ing on cut­ting loca­tion, make sure to put down a drop cloth, news­pa­per, or oth­er cov­er­ing for easy cleanup. The foam pieces will get every­where

First off, I put togeth­er the main win­dow pan­el by cut­ting the piece to make it whole using mea­sure­ments (in my case about 8in). I used a Square and a Util­i­ty Knife to score both sides, then all that’s need­ed is a lit­tle bit of force to snap the piece off (I just used the edge of a chair for lever­age)

Next are the holes! My Ecoflow hap­pened to come with a Vent Hole Tem­plate, so I used Mask­ing Tape to adhere that to each traced hole

I’m sure a jig­saw would be the eas­i­est and clean­est way to accom­plish this, but I was­n’t about to shell out anoth­er $200 for that (maybe at some point in the future).

So, I used a Util­i­ty Knife to cut the cir­cu­lar shape. Because the foam board was too thick for just the util­i­ty knife, I poked holes with a ran­dom tool (can be a screw­driv­er) and con­nect­ed the lines with a Sharpie.

Then with the util­i­ty knife, I cut the round pat­tern and a cross pat­tern on either side to facil­i­tate removal

At this point you can use any vari­ety of meth­ods to chip away at the foam (e.g. mal­let, screw­driv­er, knife). I end­ed up using a Craft Knife to deep­en the util­i­ty knife cuts all the way around, and it was excel­lent for smooth­ing out the holes

Mal­let

Craft Knife

Super easy to trim any excess pieces this way

Assembly

Back upstairs! First up: make sure the main pan­el pieces fit into the win­dow. Next, dry fit the hoses. Used the craft knife to make some adjust­ments.

Anoth­er dry fit of all pieces. Looks good!

Had the hoses ori­ent­ed the wrong way at first

Now to con­nect the two pieces of the main pan­el with the HVAC Alu­minum Foil Tape. I’ve nev­er used that kind of tape before. It’s like putting on a vinyl where you have to peel away the back­ing. When attached, the hold feels extra strong, so be care­ful not to rush and mess it up.

After anoth­er dry fit

Exhaust above inlet because heat ris­es

Mov­ing on: now to adhere the Dou­ble Reflec­tive Insu­la­tion. This real­ly is an option­al thing, but I want­ed to do this because man­u­fac­tur­er word­ing on the rigid foam boards notes that its only rat­ed to 75F. Giv­en the beat­ing sun and 100F heat, I want­ed some­thing else to both block heat and afford a lit­tle more weath­er resis­tance to the pan­el.

Fun Note: The mate­r­i­al is just like sun­shades for a car. One of the favorite things I’ve ever bought are cus­tom dri­ver and pas­sen­ger win­dow shades for my car, and it lit­er­al­ly uses the exact same mate­r­i­al except with an edge lin­er to look pret­ty

To attach the insu­la­tor, use Mask­ing or Painters’ Tape (painter’s is eas­i­er to remove) to adhere the mate­r­i­al to the foam board, then cut to size. Then, use the HVAC Tape to secure it to the foam board.

Make sure you’re apply­ing it to the prop­er side!

NOTE: This will add some width to the foam board, which isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing, but if it’s too tight, you may have to trim some off the foam. I left mine the way it was and just jammed it in there. It was a tight fit, but that works for seal­ing out weath­er and bugs. It is foam after all and will com­press a lit­tle.

Cut the vent holes out with scis­sors. I left a lit­tle bit of excess mate­r­i­al around the open­ing for a lit­tle more bug/weather bar­ri­er.

Left a lip on pur­pose
Hose dry fit

Lat­er, I end­ed up secur­ing each hole with 4 pieces of HVAC Tape because I real­ized that air move­ment might bal­loon out the space between the insu­la­tion and the foam board.

That lit­tle space between the foam and the insu­la­tor is just ask­ing for air to flow into it, bil­low­ing things out
Taped it up

Finishing Up

We’re pret­ty much done at this point! Go ahead and place it all into the win­dow, place all the hoses, and check out your hand­i­work!

You can see the win­dow screen I left in place to help with bugs
Every­thing fits snug­ly

The only thing left to do is to seal the cracks around the foam board and the vent hoses.

I used Mask­ing Tape for easy removal, but if you want some­thing bet­ter, buy some Remov­able Win­dow Seal­ing Tape (XFas­ten brand on Ama­zon is $11.99, appears to be based in Flori­da).

DONE!

Fin­ished!
Out­side view
When you want to remove it quick­ly, just pull the mask­ing tape

Notes

  • The whole sys­tem works well, and removal is as easy as remov­ing tape
  • Sound is a prob­lem, though. I can hear every­thing out­side. Like birds in the morn­ing. When you’re get­ting your best sleep. I con­sid­ered some sound­proof pan­el­ing to put in front of it but then real­ized that I don’t use the unit too much unless there’s a heat wave. Not only that, but the pan­els are pret­ty expen­sive.
  • It also makes my room smell like an attic with all the out­door smells. Per­haps it would be dif­fer­ent if I’d used the Win­dow Seal­ing Tape?

Back to DIY Projects Page

How to View House Roof Without Climbing onto It

writ­ten 5/19/25, updat­ed 5/19/25

What

View­ing roof with­out climb­ing on it

Why

Too tall, unsafe

Effort and Time

Easy & Quick

Some­times you want to view your roof. You don’t want to pay a pro­fes­sion­al to come do it you don’t have to, but you also want to know if there’s dam­age that needs to be addressed. Say, you live in house with more than one-sto­ry and you real­ly don’t have a lad­der nor want to climb that high, or you sim­ply don’t feel com­fort­able on one (espe­cial­ly by your­self! I knew a capa­ble, sin­gle man whose lad­der kicked out and he land­ed on his feet 2 sto­ries down which frac­tured both ankles and his back. True sto­ry). Here are some options avail­able to you with­out cost­ing an arm and a leg or a back mon­e­tar­i­ly and phys­i­cal­ly (hope­ful­ly).

Methods

Dis­claimer: There are many dif­fer­ent types of sit­u­a­tions and house con­fig­u­ra­tions out there. Also, I am NOT a pro­fes­sion­al, just a DIY­er in a town­house.

Camera on Stick — Easiest, Cheapest Method

Pros: Easy, Fast, Safe

Cons: May have to buy items if you don’t already have them, lim­it­ed by length and curves

Mate­ri­als: Livestream­ing Cam­era, Pole (broom, gar­den, PVC pipe, any­thing sol­id and strong), Duct Tape, Phone/Viewing Screen

Cost: You can get a decent cam­era (beware unrep­utable brands and apps in case they release mal­ware into your home inter­net sys­tem) for less than $15, Dol­lar Tree sells broom han­dles and tape for $1.25 each. Assum­ing you own a smart­phone and noth­ing else, you can do this for under $20.

Instruc­tions:

  • Most hous­es these days have wi-fi con­nect­ed secu­ri­ty cam­eras that can livestream, a broom or some oth­er strong pole(s), and tape
  • Decide on the best place to view your roof from (e.g. upstairs win­dow)
  • Duct tape your cam­era to the tip of the pole, mak­ing sure it’s secure
  • If you need height, duct tape togeth­er a few of them mak­ing sure the pole over­lap is enough to stay strong when you extend it
  • Open the cam­era app and start livestream­ing the cam­era
  • If you want to and have the func­tion, hit the “Record” but­ton
  • Extend your cam­era-on-a-stick towards the roof with a firm grip, and inspect it
  • Watch video on phone lat­er

DONE. Easy Peasy.

Drone

Pros: Easy, Good View, Maneu­ver­able

Cons: Expen­sive unless you already own one or want a nice one, Crash/loss Poten­tial, Beware drone fly­ing laws

Because the stu­pid app is stu­pid, I tried to tape a cam­era to the drone which oth­er­wise flies decent­ly for some­thing under $50

Mate­ri­als: Drone, Phone

Cost: At least $200 for a decent drone (any less and it’s worth­less and pos­si­ble secu­ri­ty risk), $15 sub­scrip­tion fee for app

Would be fine if you already have a good qual­i­ty drone or want one to begin with, but I was­n’t pay­ing $200–400 for a drone just to look at the roof. Instead, I spent 2 week­ends try­ing this fan­cy method with 2 cheap drones ($130 togeth­er) before I real­ized I wast­ed good mon­ey. This is use­ful and easy only if you already have a decent qual­i­ty drone and/or live in a one-sto­ry house. My first drone could fly decent­ly, but the app (3rd par­ty sep­a­rate from the drone sell­er) not only failed to load, but tried to hack into the inter­net sys­tem of my house both times I tried to unsuc­cess­ful­ly launch it. So, I got a sec­ond drone with its own view­ing screen and no need to con­nect an app, but the drone itself was utter garbage and was impos­si­ble to fly. Absolute waste of mon­ey. Deter­mined to make it work, I paid for the small­est cam­era ($42.99) I could find (after hours of scan­ning the inter­net) that did­n’t need phone con­nec­tion to work, just an SD card. I taped it to my first drone and tried to fly that up to the roof. Ter­ri­fied that it would fly off on its own (I’m not very good at fly­ing drones, so I crash often), I tied a string to it, but it did­n’t mat­ter in the end because the range between the con­troller and drone was about 1 sto­ry tops. Total FAILURE and an utter waste of mon­ey ($172.97. OUCH)! The only good things that came about this is that, 1) Now I know I don’t real­ly care to fly drones any­more, and 2) It’s a fun gad­get to antag­o­nize the dog with.

Instruc­tion: Very sim­ple

  • Con­nect drone to phone
  • Fly up
  • View roof
  • Don’t Crash
  • Review footage

Com­plete!

Others

Sim­i­lar to the drone, you could try a Rock Crawler RC Car with a cam­era either built-in or taped to it. It’s eas­i­er to con­trol than a drone, espe­cial­ly the slow­er speed of the Rock Crawlers, though beware the tilt of the roof, if you can lift it onto the roof with a grab­ber arm or some­thing. Just don’t dri­ve off the edge! I’d tie a string or fish­ing line around it in case it does (just don’t get it tan­gled in the wheels).

An Endo­scope could be use­ful? You could shove it along the roof? It’s flex­i­ble enough to snake around things, though the small field of view might not be so great.

Pet Rat with Cam­era and Leash… Maybe not. A hawk might get it.

You could hire some­one to per­ma­nent­ly mount a Solar Pow­ered Cam­era some­where up there, like the chim­ney. That way you can view it at any time. Weath­er could be a prob­lem, as well as retriev­ing it if you need­ed to.