Do portable a/c exhaust odor?

Like all things, i have heard some people say they do and some they dont. Haha Some say only if the exhaust isn’t sealed properly and some say it doesn’t matter smell will always exhaust. Im finishing up the build of my room and always planned on a portable a/c in the room venting into the attic. My knowledge of how a/c work lead me to believe the exhaust is to vent heat created by the compressor unit located internally (usually outside your house) which would lead me to believe the compressor and fan would be in a sealed unit inside the portable a/c unit. So…im thinking any odor leakage would have to come from an improperly sealed exhaust box that contains the compressor and exhaust fan, causing air to be sucked from the room itself or from the condensing unit area inside the unit. Anyone have any experiences???

an AC unit is designed to recirculate cooled air this means it is closed loop pulls in warm air pushes out cold in loop never leaving space. The exhaust you see on them is because they work by absorbing heat moving it to a radiator to cool on one side of unit which cools radiator on other front side between the 2 sides is sealed therefore air is only passed over cold side. A portable unit uses a fan to push heat off the hot side and out of space since window and outdoor units are outside the warm side is never or rarely confined in space. Since air is being pushed and sucked through a pipe if both intake and exhaust of hot side are sealed smell can’t be carried this is only the case if intake isn’t inside pulling odor laden air.
For best efficiency AC should always work on closed loop it does little good if you remove cooled air from space almost or as fast as it makes it @Countryboyjvd1971 is this an adequate evaluation you are a HVAC tech

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I have one of the stand up ac that vents out the window now I will say this most of the time I can go stand outside the window exhaust and not smell anything, however when I’m drying and my buds are on the drying rack I can go out to window and it smells bad as does my whole garage. But honestly it takes a pretty strong odor for you to smell it commING out of the exhaust system. I had a thought about getting some of the carbon charcoal sheet filters and putting over exhaust to see if that helps with the smell. I will be harvesting again in 2 or 3 weeks so hopefully I will have a little more info by July

Good info. I have a 12x12 filtered passive intake i think im going to build a small lung “box” inside the space and build a custom fit box duct supply that will allow for me to pull already cooled air thru the laundry room 12x12 intake. I am running filtered exhaust at 4". I prob need to up that to a 6" to maintain a slight negative pressure when the unit runs? The space is 3x11x8(h) so with running led i think it will maintain temps easy??? I am running 10 diy 3000k cob individual 50wt and 3 “300wt” full spectrum. Not wall wt, those are listed wt. My wife is tired of me taking up the closet with my tent and i just put the first coat of white on the walls. Thanks for your experience it is much appreciated. One Love

Thanks for the info. Im going with a lung box/room so i can avoid this problem altogether. Thank you for your input. One Love

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