When you are installing a new air-conditioning system, you are making a significant investment in something that will affect your daily quality of life for years to come. Because of this, it is vitally important that you get an air-conditioning system that is tailored to the precise needs of your Virginia home.
The first and most important step in choosing an air-conditioning system is determining what size system you need. Contrary to what many homeowners think, calculating the right size is not a simple job. Even when you are replacing an existing system, you can't just assume that the new A/C should be the same size as the old one; doing so would ignore all the changes in air conditioning technology and efficiency (plus, there is no guarantee the old system was ideally sized).
When sizing an air-conditioning system, you're really talking about cooling output, not physical size. Likewise, the cooling output you need is determined not by the size of your house, but by the amount of heat to be overcome. This amount of heat is called "heat gain". Your home constantly gains heat on warm days; if it didn't, you would only have to run the air conditioner once and your home would perpetually stay the same temperature. Heat gain comes from a variety of sources: air leaks, convection through walls, sunlight shining through windows, cooking appliances, hot showers, warm-blooded people and pets, etc. Calculating the exact amount of heat gained from each source is a relatively complicated process, and requires a bit of number-crunching by the HVAC contractor. It is vital to calculate it accurately, though, as an A/C that is too large or too small will not keep your home as comfortable, and can end up costing you extra each month on your electricity bills.
At Russell's Heating and Cooling, we make it our mission to do your air conditioner installation right, tailoring the system to your home's precise specifications so that we can guarantee you'll be satisfied with the result. Contact Russell's Heating and Coolingfor all your air conditioning needs.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information, click here to download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
Russell’s Heating & Cooling services the Chesapeake, Virginia and the surrounding areas. To get started, check out our website.