What Size Air Conditioner Do I Need?
When the temperatures and the humidity become oppressive in Englewood, Florida and across the country you may be asking yourself, “What size air conditioner do I need?” The answer isn’t as simple as buying the largest air conditioner on the market and hoping for the best!
The air conditioning professionals from Symbiont Air Conditioning know that most people invest in an air conditioner that is too large for the space to be cooled. Many people think the larger the unit, the better the cooling it will provide. In fact, an air conditioner that is too large will be less effective than one that is properly sized, it will also be wasting energy and costing you more money to operate.
What Size Air Conditioner Do I Need?
Air conditioners perform double duty:
- They remove heat from the room
- They remove humidity from the room
An A/C unit that is too large will quickly cool the room, but will not remove all of the humidity. If the unit is too large you will feel damp and clammy. When you have an air conditioner that is properly size it will both remove the humidity and will cool the room — that is the ideal solution.
If you’re shopping for an air conditioner many of them will indicate how many square feet it can properly cool. For example, a room that is 100 to 150 square feet will require 5,000 BTUs per hour to properly cool the room and remove the humidity. That square footage and BTU indicator is the first step in properly sizing the unit you need.
Before you shop for a unit, measure the room/s to be cooled and take those measurements with you when you shop for a unit. If you’re looking for a whole house air conditioner, one of the experts from Symbiont Air Conditioning will pay an on-site visit and do a thorough inspection of the area to be cooled and will work with you to get the unit that is the most energy efficient and will cool your whole house.
Some of the items we will check when we do an inspection to help size your air conditioner are:
- How many people are typically in a room. If you have a houseful of people and they typically congregate in a particular room, you may need a larger unit or you may need to have the unit set up with zoned cooling.
- If you have a lot of very sunny rooms you’re cooling, you may need an air conditioner that is 10% larger than the square footage/BTU indicators recommend. Conversely, if you have a lot of shady rooms, you can decrease the size of the unit by 10%.
- Cooling a kitchen will require more cooling power because of the oven, stove, dishwasher and refrigerator. You may need to add more than 4,000 BTUs per unit when you’re cooling a kitchen; again, zone cooling is the ideal way to go.
If you are considering upgrading or updating your air conditioning unit, give us a call.
We specialize in, and our expertise surrounds, GeoThermal and traditional air conditioning systems. We work with both residential and commercial air conditioning customers to heat and cool their homes and businesses.
Our fully trained, knowledgeable professionals provide residential and commercial air conditioning replacement, ongoing service and maintenance, as well as 24/7 emergency air conditioning repair. Symbiont Service Corp professionals also service and install GeoThermal systems throughout the State of Florida.
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