Northeast Mechanical HVAC
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Northeast Mechanical Inc. 139 Sawyer Avenue Buffalo New York 14043 Phone: 716-684-6301
Central Air & Air Conditioning Questions
New Construction - Service - Installation - Repair - Remodeling
Residential and Commercial
Competitive Rates - Fast Friendly Service
An air conditioner is able to cool a building because it removes heat from the indoor air and transfer it to outdoors. A chemical refrigerant in the system absorbs the unwanted heat and pumps it through a system of piping to the outside coil. The fan, located in the outside unit, blows outside air over the hot coil, transferring heat from the refrigerant to the outdoor air.
Selecting a Unit
Heat-gain calculation
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The first step is to have an evaluation of your house by performing an Air Conditioning Contractors of American Manual J load calculation. This determines the heat gain your home is subject to. The calculation is relatively easy to perform and will reveal what size unit you need. Through strongly influenced by where you live, several factors affect the size of unit required, including the amount of wall and attic insulation you have; the types and placement of windows and doors; and the orientation of your house to the sun. The calculation can also alert you to the possible benefits of upgrading the insulation in your house. By making your home more energy efficient, you may be able to reduce the size of the air conditioner you need. |
| Sizing the Unit | Using the heat-gain calculation, we'll be able to recommend an air conditioner size, expressed either in tonnage or BTU per hour (Btu/h). One tone equals 12,000 Btu per hour. Why is getting the proper size so important? An undersize unit won't be able to cool rooms completely on the hottest days and will cost more to operate because it has to run longer than a correctly sized unit. An oversize air conditionr costs more to operate because it simply takes more electricity to run a bigger unit. And an oversize unit doesn't lower humidity effectively. It cools the air so quickly and shuts off before it has a chance to circulate the proper volume of air past the coils to extract the necessary moisture. The result is a rom that doesn't seem as cool as the temperature indicates. In fact, the room can feel clammy and damp. |
| Unit efficiency | After determining the size of the unit, we'll talk to you about efficiency, which is expressed by the seasonal energy-efficiency rating (SEER). The SEER rates how many Btu an air conditioner will remove for each watt of electricity it consumes. The higher the SEER, the less it costs to operate. Federal law requires that new A/C units have at least a 13 SEER, but we usually recommend a 14 SEER, not just for the lower operating costs but also because these units tend to be higher quality and have more safety features, better sound shields and lower voltage requirements. |
| Unit types | In a split-system central air conditioner, an oudoor metal cabinet contains the condenser and compressor, and an indoor cabinet contains the evaporator. In many split-system air conditioners, this indoor cabinet also contains a furnace or the indoor part of a heat pump. The air conditioner's evaporator coil is installed in the cabinet or main supply duct of this furnace or heat pump. If your home already has a furnace but no air conditioner, a split-system is the most economical central air conditioner to install. In a packaged central air conditioner, the evaporator, condenser, and compressor are all located in one cabinet, which is usually placed on a roof or on a concrete slab next to the house's foundation. Air supply and return ducts come from indoors through the home's exterior wall or roof to connect with the packaged air conditioner, located outdoors. |
| Proper placement | Even the quietest condensers make noise, so we'll work with you to find a location that's not near your bedroom or home-office window. We won't place the condenser under a deck or cmopletely enclose it because it exhausts warm air out the top. Any airflow restriction will lower the unit's efficiency. However, you can hide the condenser in the landscaping, as long as air can freely circulate around it. |
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