Igenix IG9919 9000 BTU 4-in-1

The Igenix IG9919 is a budget 9,000 BTU single-hose portable air conditioner with a genuine four-in-one trick: it cools, heats, dehumidifies and runs as a plain fan. That versatility is unusual at this price and makes it a sensible year-round buy for a small to medium room. Sized right, in a bedroom, home office or small living room of roughly 12 to 18 m², it cools quickly and holds a comfortable temperature, and it runs on low-impact R290 refrigerant with an A energy rating, so at around 20p to 24p an hour it is cheap to run. For an affordable, do-a-bit-of-everything unit you can wheel in and switch on the same day, it is good value.

Be realistic about what a budget portable does and does not do. It is loud, up to 65 dB(A), with a compressor hum that is fine for daytime living but too present to sleep right beside on full power, and the heating mode is a shoulder-season top-up rather than a winter substitute for central heating. The kit is basic for the money: no Wi-Fi or app, a single-hose window seal that needs care to stop warm air leaking back in, and a remote with no backlight for night-time. It is also heavy at 31 kg and quick to disappoint anyone who expects it to cool a large, sunny room. Match it to a modest space and it is a capable, honest budget choice; oversize the room and it will struggle.

The IG9919 is a single-hose portable air conditioner: a free-standing unit on castors that cools the room and vents the hot air out of a window through one flexible hose. There is nothing to install and nothing that needs an F-Gas engineer, so it is the kind of cooling you buy, wheel into place and switch on the same day. What sets it apart from the cheapest portables is the four-in-one design: alongside cooling it has a real heating mode, a dehumidifier and a plain fan, so one appliance covers more of the year.

At 9,000 BTU (roughly 2.5 kW) it is sized for a small to medium room. Igenix rates it up to around 20 m², but it is happiest in a bedroom, home office or small living room of about 12 to 18 m². It runs on R290 refrigerant with an A energy rating and is self-evaporating, which means that in cooling mode it recycles most of the moisture it pulls from the air and only rarely needs draining. Controls are simple: a touch panel, a remote, a 24-hour timer and a sleep mode. There is no Wi-Fi or app, which is the trade-off for the low price.

It suits anyone who wants affordable, low-fuss cooling in a modest room and likes the idea of a single unit that also warms and dehumidifies. Who should think twice? Anyone with a large or very sunny space, where a 9,000 BTU portable will run flat out and never quite catch up, and anyone who needs near-silent running to sleep beside it. Like every single-hose portable, the compressor and fan sit in the room with you, and this is a budget unit rather than a quiet one. The sensible bedroom routine is to pre-cool the room, then drop to sleep mode or switch it off rather than run it on full all night.

Expect to pay around £290 to £340. B&Q is usually the cheapest at £289.99, down from £359.99, and specialist retailers and Amazon sit a little higher, so it pays to compare stock as well as price. Like all portables it sells out in heatwaves, so grab it early in the season if you can. At this price the four-in-one feature set is the main reason to pick it over a plain cooling-only budget unit.

Running costs are low for what it does. It draws around 840 watts on full cooling, so at the July 2026 Ofgem price cap of 26.11p per kWh that is roughly 20p to 24p an hour, and less once the compressor cycles rather than running flat out. A typical UK summer of occasional evening and weekend use lands somewhere around £20 to £30. The heating mode draws a similar amount and is best treated as an occasional top-up, since running any electric heater for long stretches gets expensive fast. Prices and rates correct as of July 2026; the energy price cap changes quarterly, so check current rates before budgeting.