Home Improvement Blog Improving Your Home And Your Life

I got going on that last post about conserving energy and decided to research air conditioners. In general I learned that since the 70s, AC units have increased in efficiency by over 50%. If you have one even ten years old, you could gain 15-30% better energy usage by switching it out for a newer one.

If you have personal AC for each specific rooms, you may consider switching to a central system as they are more efficient for cooling the whole house rather than each room individually. The room ones are great if you only want say, your bedroom cool. In the last blog about energy efficiency, it talked about using a central system like personal system by shutting off the vents in other rooms and raising the desired temperature on the thermostat. This is interesting because I think that your AC will be working too hard and losing some of its efficiency trying to power air all the way over to just one room and losing much of its coolness in traveling though the rafters. But I’ve been wrong before.

Something else I found insisted that when having a new system installed, ensure that the contractor has measured your room and has had a computer run a calculation to find the best size system. Efficiency is greatly determined by even having a proper size unit. Something too small will obviously work too hard and draw excessive amounts of power, burning out sooner. A unit too large will cycle quickly turning on and off all day overworking the sensor and consuming unnecessary power to continually start up.

If you are purchasing a new unit, check out the BTU (British Thermal Units) rating. This tells you how much hot air is ejected from your home by the hour. Get one with a minimum of 12,000 BTU/hour or EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) of at least 10.0. In hotter climates, go with even higher.

An interesting alternative to traditional AC is an evaporative cooler. These work best in dryer, hotter climates (like Phoenix or Palm Springs). The concept is backward from a normal AC because it actually cools the outside weather, then blows it indoors. These are much cheaper units to purchase and use only 25% the energy of a traditional unit. They drawback is that they require a bit more attention and maintenance.

For more information about this stuff, check out http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/housing/aircond/aircond.htm