How to Select An Air Conditioner, Selecting your air conditioner requires you to know some basic calculations, the right Air conditioner will cool your room efficiently and also will reduce your electricity consumption.
So, in short, you can save money and reduce carbon emissions. Selecting a unit too small will be too underpowered to cool your room. On the other hand, picking an oversized unit will cool the room quickly, but will inefficiently cycle on and off costing you extra money.
All air conditioners reduce temperature and humidity. An oversized unit in a small room cools excessively quickly. It runs less, leaving more humidity, making the room muggy and moist over time.
The first step in choosing a room air conditioner is measuring your space to calculate square feet area. Once you have this data we can decide on how powerful of a unit we need to go after. The formula used to calculate the area of a typical square /rectangular / triangle will be used for most rooms. i.e,
L x B = Area or L x B x ½ = Area.
Once you have calculated the area of your room please use the BTU chart below for selecting you Air conditioner.
| The Area to be Cooled (Square Feet) | Capacity Needed (BTU’s per Hour) |
| 100 to 150 | 5,000 |
| 150 to 250 | 6,000 |
| 250 to 300 | 7,000 |
| 300 to 350 | 8,000 |
| 350 to 400 | 9,000 |
| 400 to 450 | 10,000 |
| 450 to 550 | 12,000 |
| 550 to 700 | 14,000 |
| 700 to 1000 | 18,000 |
| 1000 to 1200 | 21,000 |
To finalize your results you should also consider the following.
- Ceiling height (the above chart is for rooms with 8 feet height)
- Adjust BTU by 10% based on sunlight; increase for sunny rooms, decrease for shady ones, ensuring optimal heating or cooling.
- For over 2 occupants regularly, add 600 BTUs of cooling power per person to ensure adequate room comfort.
- If you are installing your AC in a kitchen, increase the BTU level by 4,000
With the proper measurements and calculations, you will be able to determine the area of your room and make a wise choice for your next room AC.