Bartlett Heating and Air Explains Why it is Important to Choose the Right Amount of AC Cooling Power for Your Home

The summer temperatures have finally arrived so now is the time to start thinking about your air conditioner. If you are needing to replace the air conditioner you have now you will see that you have a few choices to make. Air conditioners come in various sizes and efficiencies. One of the most important things you must do when you get a new air conditioner is make sure it is sized properly for your home and families needs. It is important that you go with a qualified company to do your install so you make sure you are sized correctly. When your air conditioner is sized, we are talking about cooling power and not how big it actually is. The cooling power is measured in tons, for example a 3ton ac. The air conditioner itself does not way 3 tons. This is how much heat the air conditioner can remove from your home in an hour measured in BTUs. Before air conditioning, places were cooled with blocks of ice. If the ice melts uniformly over the 24 hours, it absorbs heat at the rate of 286,000 / 24 hrs which comes to 11,917 BTU/hr. So for air conditioners they round to 12,000 BTU/hr is used per ton in the AC. Your 3 ton AC will use 36,000 BTUs to cool your home an hour. To calculate how many tons you need, a technician like the ones at Bartlett Heating and Air come out to your home and calculate a few things after talking to you about your needs. They make one of the calculations by taking the square footage of your home and multiplying it by 25. This is called the Manual J calculation. It takes approximately 25BTU of power per square foot of your home to cool effectively. This is only an approximation and a good technician will determine size needed on multiple things, not just that calculation. There are other factors including your floor plan being open or not, how well insulated your home is, and where you live geographically. You want to make sure you have the technician size you right in the first place because you can have issues if the air conditioner is under or over sized. If your air conditioner is undersized you will notice the air conditioner struggle to reach the low temperature you want on the hotter days. The only side note about that is any air conditioner will struggle to reach a super low temperature if it is extremely hot outside so overly hot days can not be included in determining if your air conditioner is undersized. The AC will seem to run all the time and never shut off so it can try its best to keep up with the demands for cooling. If your air conditioner is over sized you will notice that it has humidity problems. The drying process occurs when the air conditioner is running so when it runs for a short period of time from being over sized it fails to pull enough moisture out of the air before it shuts off. Your air conditioner will run for short periods of time stopping and starting a lot which draws a lot of electricity raising your energy bills. Allergy sufferers will be affected because dust, dirt, and mold thrive in moist environments. These are some of this things you need to look at when choosing a new air conditioner. Bartlett Heating and Air gives free installation quotes so call us today and one of our professionals will come out and help you with all your HVAC needs.