Review on WHITE BLACK+DECKER 14,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner with Heat and Remote Control for 350 sq ft, BPACT14HWT by Rick Bear

The volume is about the same as a large room fan, which is not bad for one of these portable air conditioners. The compressor is pretty quiet. In general, you won't be comfortable listening to music or watching TV without turning up the volume, but you won't be tearing your hair out over white noise after a few hours. Definitely an improvement over my previous Shinco unit in terms of noise. The new Black+Decker also effectively cools a 20 x 20 foot room in extreme heat. Quality materials including a window hood kit and even well working wheels to move it. Unboxing and installation is easy, so this device would have earned five stars, but there is one problem: the follow me function just doesn't work, and I carefully followed the instructions several times. I just want the room temperature to be displayed on either the unit or the remote, but it only shows the set temperature. drives you crazy UPDATE: After 10 days with no issues during the hottest 12-14 hours of each day, I woke up today to a sweltering hot room. I spent 20 minutes looking at the car, reading the manual and fiddling with the settings and it felt like cold air was coming out. But the room was incredibly hot! I even checked online to see if we had a permanent power outage while I slept but nothing - and nothing else in the house showed signs of absence. So I looked again at the air conditioning and noticed that the hot air problem was most severe just above the unit itself. Voila! I happened to look down and found that the exhaust hose had accidentally become detached from the back of the unit, causing superheated air that would normally be blown out the window to be blown back into the room faster than it was cold air could blow. The result is hell. The problem is that the exhaust hose is attached to this block in *two* parts. The first part slides and snaps over the *square* exhaust port on the back of the unit, which is a round hole that allows a large exhaust pipe to be attached. The hose is attached to this fitting by a second piece, a rotating ring mechanism that "locks" the hose to the first fitting. Today I found that the first fitting had completely detached from the machine and this in turn caused the hose/pipe to detach from the fitting. In short, the exhaust system failed at not one, but at *two* connection points. I rushed to attach everything and the first (square) attachment just won't fit snugly to the car. It pops up randomly and even "licks" hot air while attached. I wrapped it in a small towel to isolate and block the leaks, but now I'm wondering if I should tape the whole thing in place. It's still a good device for the money, but I would definitely call it a major technical flaw. . I've had a cheaper Shinco unit for 6 years and the fittings have never separated like this despite obviously using cheaper plastic. So if you buy one of these Black+Decker units and ever run into a similar problem (stifling heat in the room while the unit is running), check the exhaust hose on the back immediately!