How Do I Know What Size Central Air Conditioner I Need for My Home?

Hopefully you already know the dangers of getting an AC that is too small or too big.

When it comes down to it, you need a professional AC contractor to help you find the size air conditioner you need.

Here’s how we calculate what size you need.

How we calculate the size air conditioner you need

Air conditioner sizes are measured in tons and range from 1 ton to 5 tons. The higher the tonnage, the bigger the air conditioner and the more cooling power it has.

But again, bigger isn’t always better. You want the air conditioner that’s right for your home.

That’s where a heat load calculation comes into play.

A heat load calculation is an algorithm that helps us figure out the amount of cooling your home needs. No more. No less.

It takes into account several factors that are unique to your home.

Factors that affect the size of your air conditioner

To help you better understand why this calculation is important, let’s take a look at some of the factors that go into it.

Here are a few of them:

• Direction your home faces (north, south, east, or west)
• Number, size, and direction of windows in your home
• Height of your ceilings
• Amount and type of insulation in your walls
• Amount and type of insulation in your attic
• Type of roof you have
• Your home’s square footage
• Number of stories or levels in your home

All of these factors influence what is called heat gain. Heat gain is the rate at which your home gains heat. That is, the rate heat makes its way back into your home. This matters for air conditioning size because the faster heat infiltrates your home, the bigger your air conditioner needs to be in order to keep up.

How do you do the calculation?

Like we said, you need to get an air conditioning company to do the calculation for you. The good ones do this as part of an estimate. (And you should run away from the ones that only give you a rule of thumb estimate and never do the calculation).

Professional air conditioning companies know what they’re doing and what to look for and have specialized software to help them quickly do the calculation.

If you want to do it yourself, there are some online heat load calculation tools you can use. But be forewarned: this is a tedious and long process! Give yourself some time to complete it.

Need a reputable AC company to help you figure out the perfect air conditioner for your home? Give us a call at (800) 226-2636 or contact us online today.

Cool Today is the leading air conditioning company in Florida that has been serving homeowners here since 1963. View our service area.