How to Choose the Right BTU Air Conditioner?

How to Choose the Right BTU Air Conditioner? There cannot be anything more frustrating than having an air conditioner that does not cool properly. There is no point running an air conditioner that makes you feel sweaty and hot.

There could be many reasons for an underperforming air conditioner. In most cases, it is because you may have installed an undersized AC or an air conditioner that does not have the right capacity.

On the other hand, if you have an air conditioner that is oversized or with excess capacity, then it will not be able to remove humidity from the room.

Whether you are running an underperforming or over performing air conditioner, you can be sure that you will not only sweat it or suffer from humidity but you also will end up paying a much higher electricity bill.

Hence it is important to install an air conditioner that is suitable for your room. You must select the right capacity air conditioners depending on the area to be covered by it. This is where BTU has a role to play and we will be talking about it over the next few lines.

Do a Reasonably Accurate Measurement

The length of each wall of the room where the air conditioner is being placed should be measured as accurately as possible. You should treat each wall separately, but it should not be the case for curved walls.

In case of curved walls you will have to find the radius, i.e. the distance from the middle of the room to any point of the curved wall. There could be some bit of imagination, but it is okay.

Draw a Figure of the Measured Space

It would be a good idea to draw a rough representation of the measured space. If needed, you should use graph paper, so that each square is representative of a particular measurement. This will help you in your calculations.

This may come in handy for rooms that are not square or rectangular shaped but have an odd-shape. There are many rooms having octagonal shape or even square rooms that come with an attached half-circle or a triangular area that is attached.

Arrive at the Square Footage

You must find the square footage of the area that has been graphed and measured. If the room is square or rectangular, the calculation is simple. You have to multiply width by length.

Triangular room square footage is found out by multiplying the width by the length and then dividing it into half. For rooms with an octagonal shape, you may have to use different formulas and may have to take the help of professionals.

Convert Square Footage into Cooling Capacity

The next job is to convert square footage into cooling capacity as recommended. This is expressed in BTUs or British Thermal Units. According to BTU calculations, a room having a measurement of 100 to 150 square feet should have an air conditioner with a BTU capacity of 5000.

On the other hand, if you have a room with a measurement of 700 to 1000 square feet, you would do well to have an air conditioner having a BTU capacity of around 18,000

. This should give the readers a reasonably good idea about the various points to be kept in mind while measuring a living space, converting it into the square foot, and then determining the BTU capacity that is required at the end of the day.

Some bit of Adjustment May Be Needed

You also would need to adjust the size of the air conditioner and convert it into BTUS. You may have to add 10% more to your BTU calculation if the room is particularly sunny. On the other hand you may have to deduct around 10% if the room is shady and so on.

In case you are installing an air conditioner in your kitchen that has a lot of heat-generating appliances, then you have to comfortably add another 4,000 BTUs to the square feet based figure that you have arrived at.

You also may have to add another 600 BTUs for rooms where normally more than two people inhabit it or if you have rooms that are poorly insulated.

A few tips to keep in mind

You should never oversize your air conditioner. It requires more on and off and leads to substantial wastage of energy and also puts quite a bit of strain on the compressor. You also could measure AC in tons. One ton is roughly equal to around 12,000 BTU/hour.

How to Choose the Right BTU Air Conditioner? – Conclusion

Converting square feet into BTU is quite easy and can be done by anyone who has some basic idea of math. In the case of octagon-shaped rooms, you may have a problem in which case you could take the help of professionals.