Buying a Central Air Conditioner
Factors to consider:
- Are you paying a reasonable price for your central a/c?
- What capacity of central air conditioner should you buy?
- Should you buy a high, middle, or low-efficiency air conditioner?
FurnaceCompare.com can help you answer each of these questions.
Are you paying a reasonable price for your Central Air Conditioner?
There are essentially two costs when purchasing and installing a new central
air conditioner: equipment costs and labor costs. Depending on your
situation, you may be able to reduce your costs in one or both of these areas.
Probably the single-greatest cost-saving solution is to buy your air
conditioner from a direct-to-consumer
retailer, and then hire a licensed
HVAC contractor
to install it. However, FurnaceCompare.com recommends that you consider
both the costs and benefits of this
approach before you adopt it.
FurnaceCompare publishes a list of the direct-to-consumer
prices of more
than 400 central air conditioners.
As with installing a furnace or boiler, you will need to work
with a good HVAC contractor when you install a new central
air conditioning system. Make sure that you get quotes from at
least three contractors. This will ensure you a low, medium
and high bid, and give you a good sense of what it is reasonable
to pay. Also, make sure to screen your potential contractors to
ensure that they have happy customers and no complaints.
You can use FurnaceCompare to Search for
an HVAC contractor. All of our contractors have been pre-screened
for a clean credit and legal history.
Choosing the right size Central Air Conditioner
As with sizing furnaces or boilers, it is important to have an
HVAC Contractor
perform a load calculation before you decide which size
air conditioning system to buy. If you install an air conditioner which
is too large, it will cycle on and off too often, substantially reducing
the efficiency of the system. Too small, and your air conditioner may not
be able to meet the demands of a hot, humid day.
The industry standard load calculation is called the Manual J calculation.
It takes into account the size of your house, the amount of insulation installed,
the square footage, and a host of other factors.
Central Air Conditioner Efficiency
The most common measure of the efficiency of a consumer central
air conditioning system is the
SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio).
Beginning in 2006, an air conditioner must have a SEER of at least 13
to be sold in the United
States. Higher efficiency models have a SEER between 14 and 22.
A more common rating method for commercial air conditioners is the
EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio).
EER is a measure of the ratio of the amount of cooling
(measured in BTUs) to the
amount of electricity it consumes (measured in watt-hours).
The EER is a steady state measure -- that
is, the efficiency is only measured once the unit has started up and
is running at a steady capacity.
SEER takes into account the startup and shutdown time as well, making it
a more accurate measurement for determining the actual energy costs for
the end user.
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