How to Hide an Outdoor AC Unit

Some of you might have unsightly equipment in your yard- pool equipment or AC units. We actually have both- a huge pool equipment unit smack in the middle of the yard and an AC unit right under the kitchen window. Blech. They look absolutely awful and I knew we had to find a way to cover these guys up pronto.

This project is actually a few years old so these photos are about 2 years later. I intended to post this way back when and just never did get to it. But the AC unit specifically was an incredibly fast project. I thought I would share what we did just in case some of you are also looking to make a little improvement.

Here is the before:

We have tried a few things to cover these ugly units up. I wanted to be semi-frugal about it and initially we actually built a white trellis box to cover the pool equipment and thought we might do the same for the AC unit.

The homemade lattice is large and has held up for about 2 years now but it was a ton of work and I don’t think I would want to try that project again. The wood is starting to bow slightly and some of the white paint does need touch ups. So there are homemade lattice tutorials using 1 x 6 pieces of wood but again, I wasn’t super thrilled with the result and it really was a lot of effort.

This second idea uses a premade privacy screen and was much, much simpler to make. In fact you really just need about 15 minutes total for this project and it is done. The lattice we purchased is a vinyl/polyresin so it will hold up forever basically and it just cleans up beautifully with a hose. (This is the one we bought).

We spent a little more than we wanted on this project as each side of the trellis was $25. We spent about $75 total but covering up that ugly unit made a world of difference and here we are 2 years later and it still looks great!

We replaced the AC unit once last year and the repairman actually mentioned the shaded enclosure helps the unit run more efficiently. Considering Sacramento hits the triple digits basically all summer long, we feel this was a good investment. 🙂

As you can see above these pieces just come as one unit and you can stake them directly into the ground:

And you just need to measure your unit to ensure you have enough space around the unit so it can work efficiently. Ours has a few inches on all sides so the air circulates well.

And that is it. A super simple solution to hide an unsightly AC unit or pool equipment in your yard. Unfortunately this privacy screen is only 45 inches high so it probably wouldn’t be high enough for large trash cans. You could certainly use it for recycling bins or smaller trash cans.

And here are a few other posts you might also enjoy: