BLACK DECKER Smart Portable Air Conditioner 14 000 BTU 10 200 BTU SACC for Rooms up to 700

I work from home. My home office, with all its computer equipment, heats up considerably. The office is always 15-20° warmer than the outdoor temp. In the summer, 90° outside can easily mean the office is 100-110°. Ouch. Not only is 100° an uncomfortable work environment, but it's dangerously hot for any computer equipment. Small 12x12 former bedroom -- I originally tried a Honeywell 8,000BTU unit. I gave up on that after a month or so and gave that unit away. It could not cool the room, due to the computer equipment, despite the unit running pretty much constantly. I then upgraded and for the past several years I've been running a Wynter 14,000 BTU portable AC. It was loud, but it did the job of cooling the room. The condenser burnt out about 6 months ago, but it would still blow cooler air and suck the hot air out of the room. So I continued to use it until I found a replacement. It never really got "cold" without the condenser functioning (and no one wanted to repair it) but would easily cool the room to a more livable temp - around 80°. However, it ran almost constantly in summer months. So my electric bills easily climbed by $100+ each month. Naturally, I decided to replace the old unit, which was breaking down, and decided on this Black&Decker 14,000BTU unit. The B&D unit EASILY cools the room in a few minutes and keeps it cool all day (cooling, then shutting off, then kicking back on several minutes later). Overall the B&D unit is much quieter than previous units I've owned. Of course there's the sound of the fan/rushing air when it's running, and there's a loud "ca-chunk" when it starts up the condenser (as expected). But, unlike previous units, I can still talk on the phone 5 feet away without having to first shut the unit off. In addition, the hose attachment on the back of the unit is LIGHT YEARS better than any previous unit I've seen. I do not want to have to install dual hoses for venting. So I will only look at/use one hose units. I always had trouble with hoses staying connected to the units. The "unit-to-hose connectors" other manufactures proved were a COMPLETE joke with no actual "locking" ability.. it was like resting a tissue on an outdoor picnic table and not expecting it to blow off. The hose would fall off then the unit would simply be blow hot air into the room rather than venting it out - actually heating the room as opposed to cooling it. I previously had to wrap the vent hose with a considerable amount of duct tape in order to keep it actually attached to the unit. The hose connection on the back of the B&D unit is SO MUCH BETTER and fool-proof. It essentially locks in place and stays put. No more worries about the host falling off. I like this feature a great deal, even though it's such a minor thing. My ONLY real complaint is the remote control. Not in its functionality, but in its design. The LCD screen REALLY needs some sort of illumination. Forget about reading the remote screen in a dimly lit room. I really dislike how dark the screen on the remote control is. But, it's not like I need to read the remote screen repeatedly or even frequently. I can live with it. But if they wanted to improve anything, it would be the illumination of the remote screen. I can't yet speak about longevity of the unit. I tend to use a portable AC every day, 14-16hrs, from about April through to about October.. and I got this B&D unit in Aug of this year. I would expect it to last at least 5 years, if not much longer. My last 14,000BTU unit lasted a decade before it started breaking down. If I factor in the cost over a 10 year lifespan, it's well worth it when considering at a per-year breakdown. I also can't directly speak about electric costs, as I've not had the B&D unit long enough to make an adequate comparison. However, since the B&D unit shuts off for several minutes after cooling, rather than continuously running, I would anticipate energy costs to be much lower than I've previously experienced. But I do consider any energy costs to be a necessary evil to both keep computer equipment at healthy temperatures and to not have to work in a 90° office. Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase. I was strongly looking at this unit for a few weeks weeks, researching, then it hit some sort of sale at Amazon and I purchased it for much a lower price through Amazon than I could have from ANY other retailer. I did shop around several online retailers for this same model and Amazon had the lowest price by literally hundreds of dollars at the time. Read more

We don't have central air, and our home layout is open, so a standard window A/C unit wouldn't work for us. We decided to try this free-standing A/C because of the high BTU's and are glad we did. It works well to cool our whole first floor (surprisingly quickly) and pull the humidity out of the air. We're seeing more and more 90+ degree (99% humidity) weather in our region, so this A/C unit makes summers much more bearable. Setup (and subsequent disassembly and reinstallation) goes fairly quickly, once you have the plastic panel fitted to the width of your window. Getting a snug fit for the plastic panel was the only time-consuming part of the initial installation. We've been placing a plastic tray under the unit to protect our hardwood floors in case the water collection compartment would overflow, but that hasn't been an issue. Somehow the unit has successfully evaporated any condensation it has collected all on its own, so not only have we not had any overflow, but we also haven't had to empty it. (we run a separate dehumidifier unit in the basement and have to empty that bucket daily, so we were expecting something similar with the A/C because it also, as a function of cooling, removes moisture from the air - wish the dehumidifier had whatever evaporation technology this A/C unit has) The only requirements to run this unit are that you have both a window (for ventilation) and an electrical outlet within reach of the device. Overall we're very happy with this portable air conditioner. It works well and seems to be of good quality so we're hoping to have many good years with it (we've used it for 2 summers now). Please note that we use it sparingly though because my sinuses don't tolerate when the air is too dry. As far as energy use, it's on par with the dehumidifier we run in the basement, where if you're using it regularly, you'll definitely see a noticeable increase in your electric bill. Not outrageous, but noticeable. Read more