When purchasing a new air conditioning or heating system, for your home or business it’s important to consider how it will affect your overall comfort in addition to its ability to heat or cool.
Here are three things you can look for that will help you stay comfortable:
1. Temperature Management
When it’s cold outside you need to keep it warm inside – but how warm? And how cool do you keep it when it is hot outside? One mistake people often make is by picking the least expensive, lowest efficiency system that often has long swings of hotter or colder temperatures in the space. Usually this occurs during the time after the system has run, hit the desired temperature and then shuts off until the cycle repeats. Even by setting a thermostat at 72 degrees the temperature can swing up and down by as much as ten degrees through the run cycle depending on the unit. But by using a higher efficiency system (16 SEER or higher) you can avoid this problem as the temperature and air flow are managed much more precisely – usually within one degree – saving you on energy costs and keeping you much more comfortable.
2. Temperature Variability
Evenly cooling or heating every room in a home or business is one of the greatest challenges for low efficiency systems. Since the conditioned air coming out of your system has to travel to all the rooms in your home or business, the ones farthest away from the system often get “shorted” out of the coolest air in the summer and the warmest air in the winter. The key to addressing the end- of- the-line room problems is having your system running longer periods at lower energy levels to keep the air moving into those spaces. This problem can be solved by a higher efficiency system with variable speed capacity. These systems can vary the amount of heating or cooling into a space as well as the air flow during the cycle.
3. Humidity Control
Humidity can cause you to run your air conditioner more than necessary in the hottest months. Your air conditioner acts as a sponge taking humidity out of the home, but it only works when the system is running. By using a high efficiency system running longer on lower power you can more effectively pull the humidity from the air. By running the system longer at lower speeds, you’ll also be filtering out more dust, pollen and other airborne particles.
Tip:
We always recommend that people evaluate more than just the price of cold air. By investing just a little more in higher efficiency systems you can not only save energy and money, but can improve your comfort and health.
Did you know that higher efficiency air conditioners can actually make your home or workplace healthier?
