What size window air conditioner should I get to supplement my central air?
Nina asked:
We like to cool our bedroom more than the rest of the house. We want to get a portable air conditioner, but should we get the size for the room or just a small unit to cool the room an extra few degrees. This room is at the far end of the house from the central air unit and the thermostat. How do we figure the BTU’s for this situation?
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We like to cool our bedroom more than the rest of the house. We want to get a portable air conditioner, but should we get the size for the room or just a small unit to cool the room an extra few degrees. This room is at the far end of the house from the central air unit and the thermostat. How do we figure the BTU’s for this situation?
June 18th, 2011 at 5:50 am
get a 18,000 220 volt unit, it will last longer and cool quicker, and not use too much power
sears has them
June 20th, 2011 at 11:43 am
When selecting HVAC units one of the things you want to avoid if possible is oversizing the unit. The reason for this is that a compressor cycling on and off a lot is going to fail sooner than one that runs more continuously. You’ll also be paying for the larger unit when you don’t need to. With that said, in your case it’s too difficult to be worth trying to calculate the actual load you need to meet in order to bring your bedroom down a few degrees. However, based on experience I do know that a few degrees difference will not require much extra load at all. Since your central system will keep running normally it will take less than 3000 BTU to give that little extra cooling you want. I’m pretty sure they don’t make them that small though, so just find the smallest one available and set it to the temperature you want.
FYI, a decent 1800 sq ft house will usually have about a 36000BTU capacity unit. Unless you have a big house, an 18000BTU unit would be enough to cool half your house all by itself–major overkill for supplementing one bedroom with existing cooling.