Last year, in the middle of a blistering heat wave, The Squire managed to snag the last window air conditioner Sears had in stock between Philly and DC. It worked beautifully, and I would recommend it highly. But winter is coming, and we need to remove it and put it away until next summer.
And we discovered you can’t get the fool thing apart to clean it.
Cleaning the filter is easy. Pull open the little trap door, remove the screen, wipe it off and slip it back in. BUT. The augers and grills which direct the air flow are not removeable by the average person. After two years of use, they had become covered with black mold, which you obviously do not want blowing around your house. The manual that came with the machine was no help, and when I contacted Sears’ on-line Help Desk, I “spoke” with three different people, none of whom knew how the remove the dirtiest parts of the unit.
The Squire managed to find a very hidden clip, which popped the entire front off the machine. He had to remove the electonic panel from inside, and then I spent about a half an hour with Lysol, hot water, and an old toothbrush, scrubbing all the nooks and crannies. I was sorely tempted to put it in the dishwasher.
To top it all off, the inside of the unit is conscructed entirely of Styrofoam! Try to get that clean!
So now, the dismantled air conditioner is drying out on the front porch. We’ll see how it works when The Squire gets it put back together.
thisendoftheswamp 
I am not much of a handy man (so it’s a good thing I’m handsome), but I would HIGHLY recommend that you wait until everything is D-R-Y dry dry dry before plugging that thing back in.
Oh, believe me, we will. It will probably spend the winter in the workshop, which is usually the warmest room in the house.