Alpine Hardware Premium Heat Pump Drillless Drill-Less Window Air Conditioner & Heat Pump Bracket - Window AC Support - Supports Air Conditioners Well Over 200 lbs. - No Drilling 2023 Model

Once assembled the bracket is very sturdy, so it does the job its designed to do. However, my experience was pretty frustrating, and I reflected this in my rating. Im a pretty handy person with an architecture and engineering background, and a lifetime of DIY projects, so I dont usually gripe about this sort of stuff unless its really warranted. For the price I paid for this item, my experience should have been a lot better. 1.) Item arrived missing about half the fasteners required for assembly. The fastener pouches were factory sealed, so this wasnt an open box/returned item. I would have returned it because of this, but its over 100 degrees where I live and I needed to install my AC ASAP for the health of my family. So I wasted some cash and a couple hours of my time going out and buying the necessary fasteners to complete assembly. 2.) The manufacturing on this product does not live up to the tight tolerances it was designed with. The metal piece (item 8 in the parts list) that is bolted between the main support arms (items 6 in the parts list) did not fit because when bolted to the main adaptor bracket (item 1 on the parts list), the space between the arms was too tight. It required about half an hour of wedging and jamming to get it to line up to the correct holes. Im a grown man and I struggled with this. A weaker person would have struggled much more. 3.) Its almost impossible to bolt the adjustable arms (item 2 on the parts list) to the main adaptor bracket because the space inside the bracket is extremely tight. These are crucial to the function of the bracket, so leaving them loose is not an option. For something as expensive as this, the design should either make the interior side of this hole more accessible , or the choice of fasteners should have been more appropriate for use in tight spaces.

Ive got two of these. Im not unhappy with them overall, but they are quite difficult to set up. The feet have some trouble connecting with any exterior wall that has siding (which is pretty much every wall). The only way I can get the feet to connect with the wall is if the feet are positioned very inward, but then stability is horrible. Thats the main reason for the 3-star review. They work, but they take some fiddling and you for sure have to screw them into the windowsill directly. They come with spacers to help line up the screwed surface with the window frame so your A/C doesnt sit tilted inward. The provided screws will work for one install, they strip on the heads very easily, but they are a standard size so your local hardware store will have replacements for next year. Also, word from the stupid, careful not to pinch your fingers in this as it does fold completely and with zero resistance so it can collapse (when not mounted) and pinch your fingers easily. Its also very heavy and so the pinch has a real bite to it.

Directions to horrendous and there’s only one video online and it’s not much better. The design isn’t very good because it’s not clear how to set it up. I still haven’t figured it out

I recommend the double support bracket design over the single one as this will hold the AC unit securely. There were a few quirks about the installation. The bubble level indicator doesnt snap in place, it will just fall out. You would need to glue it in or something if you needed it. The instructions show you want to screw the cross brace with the long hex bolt behind the short phillips bolt. When you do this, the support leg binds with the phillips bolt when it collapses. I flipped the positioning of the long hex bolt and short phillips bolt, you get a support leg that can swing freely while still having the cross bar attached at two points. I use this bracket to support a window unit in my roof top tent, and it works perfectly.

This seems pretty sturdy now that it is installed. But, 2 of the screws snapped in half while installing. My husband traded out the screws that came with it for deck screws and at this point, every thing seems good.

If youre going to have a window AC unit, you probably need a bracket. This one seems very sturdy for its size, and is doing the trick in holding up my AC. Its not as easy to install as a simple 1-2-3 and there it is. It requires a drill and some technical expertise. Also, in order to fit snugly against the outside wall, you may need further bracing with wood wedges or similar (the shape of my exterior wall required two nearly 3 blocks to achieve level). Read the instructions through before starting installation. You dont want to get stuck halfway through the job with nothing in the open window! I had help from my dad, who thankfully knew better than to start hanging the bracket without taking measurements and cutting the necessary wood wedges (not included!). The integral levels in the arms are really useful to make sure that your AC unit tilts very slightly to the outside and drains away from the window. Once screwed in place, I assume that the bracket will be staying permanently, although Ill put the AC in storage come winter.

The instructions are atrocious. They try to be as detailed as possible, but it gets overwhelming. The product itself works just fine and looks clean. It was definitely worth the price.

As the title states, this is one of the worst purchases I have ever made. From a design and metal quality standpoint it’s fine, but trying to put this thing together took literally hours, and that was with two people. The included directions might as well not exist, and the video for it is also an absolute disaster, it should banned from YouTube. There was not enough hardware included to build it properly, so I was only able to use 75% of the included screwsolts. I have absolutely 0 clue what its actually doing in my window right now or if it’s even really holding up the air conditioner. I was able to eventually cobble it together, but that was only after taking it apart and putting it back together about 5x... Both the directions and the video show you how to build the item, and then in the following steps essentially tell you to completely take it apart again. • If you hate yourself enough to buy this item, or you are really desperate and live in an apartment like I do where you can’t readily drill into your windows, I advise watching the video IN FULL (don’t bother reading the directions they were written by someone with wet brain), from start to finish, several times.... And while building this thing, if you find yourself with not enough hardware, pray. Just pray and believe and hope that this thing will stay together and not come crashing down and take out the persons AC who lives below you.

I have several problems with this window support bracket, first of which is that it came with ineffective hardware. It doesnt have enough washers for all of the pieces, and half of the nuts that came with the package use plastic stoppers which cause them to cap off at a certain point on the bolt when threaded on. This means they cant be tightened down all of the way and would require at least twice as many washers as the kit came with to make the join on these bolts secure in any sense. Second although the kit claims to fit most windows, at the smallest setting for the brackets, the legs still dont have a tight enough hold on my window ledge and are just too heavy for a second story window. They dangle and pull the entire bracket down. Not to mention, the weld for the main support ledge is crooked which means getting the center support in between the main two arms was nearly impossible and tilts the entire ledge at an angle when joined. This causes the screws for the legs to come loose with time. I will be returning this product as soon as possible.

The Alpine Hardware Universal Window Air Conditioner Bracket may work in some cases but it has some serious design flaws and was completely useless for me. Installing a window unit in a garage workshop, I thought the bracket would provide solid support. The first problem that the long screws that connect the legs to the platform are impossible to tighten enough to keep the feet against the outside wall. The legs are just enough narrower than the platform arms that the legs swing free. I was concerned that vibration from the unit would cause them to fall and the weight of the AC would cause it to fall outside, ruining the AC and the window frame. To fix that I made a trip to the hardware store and bought four sets of screws, washers, and lock nuts. That at least kept the legs in place. (See photos) The next major flaw is the frame causes the AC to sit ½” above the bottom of the window frame. That means you’ll need to stuff a lot of foam (not included) to seal the large gap underneath the AC unit. The final flaw is that there is no simple or obvious way to attach the unit to the bracket. Normally the AC came with L-brackets that attach it to the windowsill, but the brackets raised everything so far above the sill that the included brackets wouldn’t reach. The side curtains aren’t sturdy enough to hold the AC in place so a bump to the front or back of the AC would send it crashing to the floor/ground. Rather than make another trip to the hardware store to work around the problems with the bracket, I cut a shelf for the sill from a 2x4 and build a small frame outside to help support the unit. I made it wide enough to attach brackets to keep the AC in place. If after reading this you decide to purchase this bracket anyway, be sure to watch the assembly video several times. It will save you a lot of trouble. The one-page, tiny print instructions in Chinglish are difficult to read and understand and they do not follow the “simple” steps shown in the video. Any product that, out of the box, requires that many updates, fixes, and work-arounds is not worth the time or the money.