With winter slowly, but surely, coming to an end soon, it’s time to focus our attention on our air conditioning systems. What kind of shape is yours in? Is it time for you to invest in a replacement?
If it is time for you to upgrade, you are likely tempted to just go ahead and buy the biggest and best system you can afford and get it installed quickly, right? We really want to encourage you to slow down and consider the implications of this, though. Rushing into an air conditioner purchase can lead you to not only getting the wrong model of air conditioner for your specific home, but the wrong size too, which will have serious implications to the efficiency of the equipment and the comfort of your home.
To properly size a system, our professionals must do what’s called a cooling load calculation. “Wait,” you might be wondering,” I thought you were going to tell me how to calculate the air conditioning load of a room?”
This is actually a pretty complex job, and it’s not just the room we have to calculate the load for, but your entire home. There are a number of factors that go into this calculation. They include:
Your home’s daytime heat gain: How much thermal heat gain does your home accumulate throughout the day?
Your home’s orientation: We look at the direction in which your home faces. This plays a large role in your daytime heat gain! A home with many south facing windows is going to gain a lot more heat than one without.
The levels of insulation throughout your home: Many people think of keeping their homes warm in the wintertime when it comes to insulation. But the purpose of insulation is to prevent heat transfer, which means the insulation is just as vital for keeping heat out of your home in the summer as it is keeping heat in during the winter.
Your home’s floorplan: Open floor plans will receive and distribute cooled air differently from a home that has many closed rooms and walls.
Number and types of doors and windows in your living space: Closing an insulated door in your home is going to have a lot different of an impact of closing an uninsulated door in your living space when it comes to keeping chilled air in. The types of windows you have matters too when it comes to keeping heat out.
The number of stories in your home: Warm air rises! It matters how powerful your air conditioner is. An underpowered air conditioner—that is, one that’s too small for your space—will not be able to adequately cool down a two-story home to your liking because it will likely get the first story too cold while never reaching your desired temperature upstairs.
The square footage of your home: This is the one that most homeowners think is the only factor there is to sizing an air conditioner. They’re often surprised when they find out just how much a professional cooling load calculation involves.
When you’re ready to look into your next air conditioning installation, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.
Contact Dayco Systems for professional Kennesaw, GA air conditioning services today!
