Through-the-Wall Air Conditioners for Dummies

through the wall air conditioner

When they want to go outside, pooches who spend their days at Antisocial Network HQ are reduced to staring at the staff and telepathically transmitting the phrase, "Lemme out: I wanna pee." It seems to work, but we're pretty sure they'd rather have their own doggy door so they can leave whenever they want. The problem? No one on the staff wants to tackle installing a through-the-wall doggy door, even though some of us are pretty handy. Which makes us wonder why someone who we're pretty sure isn't very handy had the gall to publish "How to Install an AC Unit in the Wall"¹ at eHow.com (now HomeSteady.com). Why do we suspect Debbie Lamb isn't all that handy? Besides having read her post, we doubt that the topic came up while she was getting that AA in journalism...

Although Lamb claims to have graduated "with honors," we were taken aback by her insistence on citing references for common knowledge (at least what we believe to be common knowledge), such as defining air conditioners:

"An air conditioner, according to 'Popular Mechanics,' allows you to lower the temperature of the air in a room."

Wow: now there's a stunning revelation... and Lamb continues in that vein, with more stunning revelations such as

"...a good place for an air conditioner, according to 'Consumer Reports,' is 12 to 48 inches above the floor in the center of the room..."

...a rather clumsy rewording of CR's advice, wouldn't you say? But let's get to Debbie's "instructions": "Measure the air conditioner unit to find out the wall hole size needed. Cut the rectangular hole with a utility knife to expose at least the width of the studs, and make it taller than the air conditioner unit. You will need room to install framing according to your air conditioner manual." Gee, dumbass, if you have the manual, you don't need to measure the unit: you'll already know what size rough opening is required. We guarantee it'll be more than "the width of the studs," though. And then you must:

"Install the wall framing according to the air conditioner manual..."

...followed by

"Cut through the exterior siding with a circular saw, using the inside hole as a guide..."

...which we suspect will be a little difficult with the framing already in place -- not to mention that, since very few TTW A/C units are narrower than 14½", you probably need to cut through at least one cripple stud under any window. Oh: and what if your exterior wall is faced with brick? After carelessly rewording additional instructions she found somewhere online (but not in any of her "references"), Lamb says to:

"Replace the insulation and drywall by cutting them to the proper size around the air conditioner..."

'Nuff said? Yeah: 'nuff said. As if all that bull wasn't bad enough, Lamb closed with the warning "Experience with construction and renovation is highly recommended prior to cutting into an wall." For having the unmitigated gall to write about a daunting topic with no such experience whatsoever, we hereby award the coveted Dumbass of the Day trophy to Debbie Lamb (the one from Arkansas).

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7147529_install-ac-unit-wall.html

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