Tag: mount

DIY: Portable AC Dual Hose Window Vent Mount

writ­ten 6/27/25, updat­ed 6/27/25

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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?

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Front License Plate Frame Installation Mustang Mach‑E: Drill & No-Drill

writ­ten 2/17/25, updat­ed 7/13/26

Overview

What

Installing a front license plate frame by both drill and no-drill meth­ods for 2024 Ford Mus­tang Mach‑E GT Ral­ly

Why

To com­ply with state reg­u­la­tions for dis­play of front tags

Time and Effort

Time: 5–20 min­utes

Effort: Easy

Materials & Cost

Supplies

No-Drill

  • 3M Dou­ble Sided Water­proof VHB Mount­ing Foam Tape, 1.18in x 16.5 ft
  • Scis­sors
  • 91% Iso­propyl Alco­hol Wipe
  • Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er
  • 180–320 grit Sand­pa­per
  • Painter’s Tape
  • License Plate Frame (OEM)
  • Plate Frame Hard­ware (OEM)

Drill

  • Plas­tic (Poly) Riv­et Gun
  • 1⁄4″ Drill Bit and Dri­ver
  • License Plate Frame (OEM)
  • Plate Frame Hard­ware (OEM)

Cost

  • $16.99 for 3M tape roll (Ama­zon)
  • $13.95 for 3‑pack Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er pack­ets (Ama­zon — $4.65 per pack­et)
  • $17.99 for Plas­tic Riv­et Gun set (Ama­zon or cheap­er from Har­bor Freight)
  • Free all oth­ers (owned, came with car)

Process: Drill

Pros: Secure, wor­ry-free, fast

Cons: Cre­ate holes in bumper (could affect col­lec­tor’s val­ue), can’t remove eas­i­ly

  • Find fac­to­ry dim­ples on the bumper
  • Using a 1⁄4″ drill bit, drill holes
  • The 3rd/bottom hole does not have a fac­to­ry guide dim­ple

Hint: Align and hold the frame to the car in line with the 2 dim­ples to use it as a tem­plate for the bot­tom hole dur­ing instal­la­tion

  • Find the plas­tic Pop Riv­ets that came with the frame. Push them through the frame and into the bumper
  • Slide the Riv­et Gun over the part stick­ing out, and squeeze. This will com­press the anchor back against the bumper. Release and squeeze again. You should hear a loud CLICK and the rod should come off (*See Notes for a look into how it works)

NOTE: You might have to squeeze a few times, mak­ing sure the gun is seat­ed all the way against the frame. If it fails (the rod breaks off, but the riv­et does not hold) push it out and try with the oth­er riv­et. In case this hap­pens, and you don’t have a spare, make sure to do the top 2 holes first because the frame will hold fine with just two attach­ments. See Notes sec­tion for more infor­ma­tion on the hard­ware

  • Slide the plate into the brack­et, secure with screws

DONE!

Process: No-Drill

Pros: Remov­able, no holes drilled into bumper, no mar after removal

Cons: Not 100% secure, chance of los­ing plate and frame

WARNING: My attempt at this failed after a month. At the time, it was installed in the cold win­ter weath­er, and I did not employ the use of an adhe­sion promoter/sandpaper. This is writ­ten with the revi­sions in place. Employ at your own risk!! *See NOTES sec­tion for my updates regard­ing success/failure

  • Make sure your license plate frame has enough sur­face con­tact areas to adhere it well to the car with 3M tape

This is the vehi­cle’s orig­i­nal plate frame

  • Go out to your car and dry-fit the frame accord­ing to the fac­to­ry dim­pling on the bumper
  • Using painter’s tape, mark out bor­ders to help with align­ing (Use strips that attach to both the frame and the car for eas­i­est align­ing)
  • Install license plate to frame (Can do this as the last step, if you pre­fer)

The OEM hard­ware will not scratch the car, stop­ping short of the end of the holes

  • With 180–320 grit Sand­pa­per, use cir­cu­lar motions to rough up the sur­faces where the tape will attach
  • Soak either a cot­ton pad or cot­ton ball with Rub­bing Alco­hol (high­er per­cent will dry faster) or use alco­hol wipes
  • Wipe down sur­faces with the alco­hol and wait for them to dry all the way
  • Open the Adhe­sion Pro­mot­er pack­et (I’d rec­om­mend gloves here) and wipe each con­tact point with a thin lay­er
  • Allow to dry (90–120 sec­onds)
  • Mea­sure out and cut the VHB 3M Tape to the size you need for your plate
  • Apply the sticky side to the plate, leav­ing the oth­er side of the tape (the one that will con­tact the car) still cov­ered

NOTE: 3M’s instruc­tion for this tape rec­om­mends heat­ing up with a hair dry­er if using in the win­ter. This tape is also move­able until com­pressed and mov­ing it should not affect adhe­sion prop­er­ties. Vis­cos­i­ty reach­es max­i­mum increase by 72 hours.

  • Rec­om­mend­ed: par­tial­ly remove the lin­ers in the house before going out­side. It can adhere tight­ly, so you may need to use tweez­ers if your fin­ger­nails aren’t able to get a good hold
  • Go out to your car
  • Dry fit the frame again, if you’d like
  • Use Rub­bing Alco­hol to wipe clean the install area of the car, mak­ing sure all for­eign debris is removed (oth­er­wise the tape will adhere to the debris instead of the car)
  • Wait until it it has evap­o­rat­ed
  • Peel off the lin­ers from the mount­ing tape
  • Align with the painter’s tape
  • Press
  • Keep press­ing with decent pres­sure for at least a minute (I did around 2–3 min­utes. It was eas­i­est with my feet while I messed around on a phone for a bit)
  • Remove the painter’s tape

Done!

Notes

  • Update 2/27/25 (10 days lat­er): Still hold­ing strong and no prob­lems! Been on the high­way, through work zones, lots of pot­holes, speed bumps, took turns too quick­ly, and plen­ty of stop and go traf­fic. So far, so good.
  • Update 3/25/25 (1 month): FAILURE!! Went to walk the dog and found the license plate frame on the ground! Good thing it was at home. I’ve decid­ed to leave the instruc­tions and post, up, though, because I still think it’s doable with some revi­sions. It’s impor­tant to note that all the 3M tape was still adhered well to the car. In fact, they were dif­fi­cult to remove. Removal left a clean, unmarred sur­face — exact­ly the point of adher­ing as opposed to pok­ing holes. This means that the fail­ure point was on the side of the brack­et, and not the tape or the car por­tion. I won­der if it was because the weath­er start­ed to change. I installed it in the cold win­ter, and it fell off when the days warmed up and overnight.
  • Update 3/30/25: Com­pro­mise. While I did not want to risk the plate falling off again (what if it hap­pens while on the road?) I still think that it’s pos­si­ble to adhere with 3M tape with­out drilling. So, what I did this time was use the drill method for the top two holes and applied the revi­sion process (adhe­sion pro­mot­er and sand­pa­per) for the low­er hole. That way, I have it secure AND I did­n’t drill into non-dim­pled bumper. I will mon­i­tor and con­tin­ue observ­ing the bond of the low­er por­tion of the frame at reg­u­lar inter­vals to see if it holds up
  • Update 8/24/25: With the phys­i­cal attach­ments, my brack­et has not fall­en off (of course). I went to try and tug on the bot­tom part of the frame where there is just the adhe­sion, and while it did­n’t move much, I can’t real­ly get a good read because of the hard­ware on the upper por­tion. At this point, I’m going to say that I do NOT rec­om­mend the No-Drill method, but you are wel­come to try! If you do, com­ment and let me know if it works for you!
  • Update 7/13/26: While the Drill Method still holds on well (nev­er thought it would­n’t), I still do not rec­om­mend the No-Drill Method. The tem­per­a­tures have gone up past 100F and down past 0F, there’s been crazy wind and down­pours, ice like con­crete, and I feel strong­ly that with­out the pop riv­ets, there’s only a minis­cule chance the tape will hold unless you hap­pen to live in an extreme­ly tem­per­ate area with min­i­mal swings.
  • If you look at the word­ing on the back of the plate frame, you see the let­ters “PP+EPDM.” These stand for PolyPropy­lene (PP), plas­tic, and eth­yl­ene-propy­lene-diene monomers (EPDM), a syn­thet­ic rub­ber. 

Hard­ware Infor­ma­tion

Con­tain­er License Plate Hard­ware

BB53-17A386-AA

Ford

1⁄4″ thick­ness in hole

1⁄4″ thick­ness screws

Plas­tic Pop Riv­et — How it Works

Start

Top View

Bot­tom View

For fun, I tried it with dou­ble thick­ness to see what would hap­pen. The first attempt failed, high­light­ing that if the ridged por­tion does not grab, then it will not stay in place and become loose. The sec­ond attempt suc­ceed­ed but was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to squeeze.

You can see how there’s more of the ridged part on the sin­gle thick­ness before it cut off

Here’s the failed riv­et