Buying the right size air conditioner for your home is essential to keeping you comfortable and to keeping your bills manageable. Buying an AC unit that is too small will mean it has to work overtime to keep up with the demand that the thermostat is calling for. This means higher utility bills and more wear and tear on your equipment, which means repair and replacement sooner.
Having an AC unit that is too large inflates the cost of the unit to begin with – you’re paying for more than you need – and paying more each month.
At Irish Heating and Air, we take pride in fitting our customers into systems that fit for their needs. We will never sell you a system that doesn’t work for you, your home, and your family.
How Do I Figure Out If My AC Unit Is Big Enough?
Determining how large of an AC unit you need sounds like something you’d need a professional for. We’re happy to do the calculations for you, but you can easily do them yourself!
- If you know the square footage of your house, that’s all you need! Stop right here and move on.
- If you don’t, you’ll want to go room by room, and using a tape measure, calculate the length and width of each. Once you get that, simply multiply to get the square footage. So for example, a 10 ft. x 10 ft. room would be 100 sq ft.
- If you don’t have a perfectly square or perfectly rectangular room, cut it into pieces and calculate each of those. Remember, we’re just estimating here,
- Once you’ve made those calculations, add all of those together and you’ve got the square footage of your home! Make sure you don’t forget utility rooms!
On you’ve got the square footage of your home, you can use the chart to below to get a good estimate of what size AC unit you should look into.
BTU’s stand for British thermal units and account for how much cooling air is being blown throughout your home. You may also see units advertised as one or two ton units – these are the same calculations presented in a different unit.
Calculating the size of the unit is the most important part – now you can easily choose between brands and features. Irish understands, however, that confusion about your selection doesn’t end once you calculate the BTUs you need. We’ll walk you through how we remove your old AC unit (if applicable), install your new one, test it, and ensure you understand how it works and the features it comes with. We’ll help you choose your system from soup to nuts. Irish Heating and Air is available to help you make the decision that fits your needs.
P.S. This is also a great time to check over your insulation and windows to ensure that your system isn’t running harder than it should.
