SEER ratings are very misleading as they do not reflect actual operating conditions. Good old EER or actual amp ratings are desireable. I found another candidate. I haven't found a price yet but it looks quite interesting, it is the Fujitsu 12RLQ. This is another 240 volt unit but it's rated curent while delivering 12,000BTU is 4.5amp at an EER of 13.5 or 889 watts and it's maximum curent (while delivering 14,500BTU) is 7 amps. I'd use a 1 kva+ 120 volt isolation transformer to supply the other half of the 120/240. Fujitsu has another interesting candidate in the 12RQ it is 120 volt but doesn't have the 'overload' capability to do 14500 BTU, it's 12,000 BTU, draws 9.9 amps and 1070 watts.
Regards
Jerry 4107 1120
Jerry, I am curious as to how you would use an isolation transformer to supply the other half of the 240 volt power requirement. Would you just feed the transformer with the existing 120 volts and then on the output reverse the leads to put the 120 volt output out of phase with the input. I have never heard of this, but really see no reason why it would not work. It would save on transformer cost. Have you ever done this?
Richard