In effect, the unit is trying to cool the air in your room and outside the room, a volume it might not be rated to accommodate. The cool air will leak out, and warm air will leak in. Your bedroom might be 150 square feet, but if you leave the door open while the unit runs, you've got a whole lot of hallway that you now need to factor into the equation. Remember how window units are designed with a certain amount of air space in mind? That air space assumes that all of the doors connected to the room are closed. There are a couple of different scenarios to run through here. If you're tired of coming home to a hot and stuffy house, consider getting a smart or programmable thermostat. The lesson: set your AC unit to your ideal temperature and let it do the work. Now, you're simply too cold and have unnecessarily wasted a lot of energy. If, for example, your ideal temperature is 72F and you set the unit for 65F, the unit will keep going until the room hits 65F. This is because the AC unit will keep working even after it reaches your ideal temperature. It's the worst thing that you can do in this situation. The temperature setting only tells the unit when to stop pumping out cool air changing the setting from 70F to 65F won't speed up the process. Your AC unit pumps out the same "strength" of cool air at all times, whether your room is 70F or 90F. What do you do? You might think that the best course of action is to crank your AC all the way down to 65F so the room will cool faster, but that's not how air conditioning works. The lingering humidity will make the room feel muggier and warmer than it is.Īfter coming home from a long day at work, you step inside, only to be slammed by a thick wall of stale, 90F air. An oversize AC unit will pump out a lot of cool air, but it won't stay on long enough to dehumidify the room. We also don't recommend buying an AC unit that's too big, either. You may need to increase this number by up to 10 percent if the room has high ceilings or receives a lot of sunlight. The rule of thumb is that every square foot of room space needs 20 BTU, with an additional 600 BTU for every person that regularly occupies it. The worst mistake you can make happens before you even turn your AC on for the first time.Īll AC window units are designed with a particular amount of "air space" in mind, and your unit won't be effective if your room is too big or too small for it to handle.Īll AC window units have a British Thermal Unit (BTU) rating, typically in the range of 5,000 to 15,000.
Using an AC Unit That Isn't the Right Size Fixing these issues will result in faster cooling, greater comfort, less wasted energy, and a much more modest utility bill.ġ. Or, maybe it is, but you're worried that you'll feel the pain when your energy bill arrives at the end of the month.įear not: we'll walk you through several common air conditioning mistakes that you might be making at home. It's even worse when you turn to your air conditioner for help, only to find that it isn't doing a damn thing.
Hot, wet, and muggy-truly the worst kind of summer weather to endure.
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