One of the misconceptions homeowners have when shopping for a new HVAC system is that the bigger, the better. However, this is definitely not true—and many homeowners end up paying way too much on a system that doesn’t do what they expected.
The trained and certified professionals at American Air Cares can help you with the required calculations to get the AC unit that’s just right for your particular home; it needs to be the correct size to keep up with the cooling needs in south Florida without causing you any extra headaches caused by an AC unit with too much tonnage.
But…what is tonnage?
In the world of HVAC, tonnage doesn’t refer to weight, rather it refers to how much heat an air conditioner can remove from a home in one hour, is measured in BTUs (British Thermal Units), and each ton is equivalent to 12,000 BTUs. So, a one-ton air conditioner can remove approximately 12,000 BTUs of heat per hour.
Then mathematically and by definition, the more tonnage, the more air the unit can cool in a hour—which leads many to purchase the biggest unit they can afford, thinking that their house will cool faster and they can just turn it down once it reaches “cold.” But bigger tonnage doesn’t mean it cools faster; it’s simply a measure of capacity, not speed.
In addition to this misconception, there are other issues with installing an oversized air conditioner such as the AC running on a short cycle (shutting the compressor on/off prematurely), which causes multiple issues such as hot spots around your home due to the distribution issues and more humidity in the air because the unit isn’t running long enough to remove it properly.
Our technicians at American Air Cares are trained to properly calculate the correctly sized HVAC system for your home. Call us today to set up a consultation to calculate the tonnage needs of your home.
