The winter is a good enough time to consider your residential air conditioning needs. Even though technology has evolved tremendously over the years, no conclusive method has been invented yet to test the absolute efficiency of air conditioners. You can only test the efficiency of an air conditioner system through installing it with all its accompaniments. Then you will be able to rate the efficiency of your air conditioner.
Air conditioners are affected by some natural elements and climatic conditions. One element that affects air conditioners adversely is humidity. Current industry standards for rating air conditioners include SEER and EER ratings. This are calculated time estimates of how long the air conditioner can work and the estimated cost.
To calculate the efficiency of an air conditioner unit, we calculate the BTU’s produced by a household and compare it against the total BTU’s being produced to the house. We compare this reading and the percentage gives us the efficiency. This values differ from house to house.
In a household where the ducts have been installed properly and the unit has been installed the right size right size for your home, then you can get up to 85% efficiency even though this is rare. Even the slightest contamination of your air conditioner reduces the efficiency drastically. If the unit installed in your house is larger than the required size for your house, then the unit’s efficiency reduces due to high humidity levels. This will hinder the unit from attaining its optimum running conditions.
In the recent times however, research is being conducted to help improve the efficiency of both heating and cooling systems, saving the customer tons of money and producing more environmentally friendly products.
Some old concepts are being revived and going under research and improvements to produce results that will increase the overall efficiency of both heating and cooling systems. In the recent past, a misguided myth has been used to justify the production of larger air conditions. It was believed that the larger the unit, the more efficient it would be (by Toronto Air Conditioning standards).
One flaw with this idea was that the air conditioners duct remained same in size. Developers do not consider that a larger unit would require more air. This makes the air conditioners efficiency drop further, while the government imposed rules to make them more efficient. The smaller ducts in large units makes increased volumes of air hard to flow through the units.
The olden day systems were not efficient and those residing in older households get efficiency which is less than 50%. Newer homes are more efficient and there exist technology which is being used to measure the efficiency of your air conditioner system.
Laird and Son Heating and Cooling will provide these diagnostics for your HVAC systems. Please call us at 416-421-2121.