Air conditioner Complete selection and installation guide

Why we need to Know Area of room before selection of air conditioner?

There is often confusion arises in customer mind that what size of air conditioner will be sufficient for their room. Most often everyone get some information from friends or from seller itself. Even other customers just try to explain their own experience and you buy according to their experience, and sellers always try to sell those products from where they get maximum profit.

So it will become very important to know what size of air conditioner should be selected for effective cooling of room, although friends experience gets to arrive at good product. But you should know how to select right capacity of Air conditioner as per requirements.

If you buy an air conditioner with higher capacity from requirements then this will leads to excessive power consumption and if lower capacity air conditioner selected then cooling will not be achieved which will defeat the purpose of air conditioner installation.

Air conditioners server two purposes:-

(i)                  For cooling

(ii)                For Dehumidification

If Air conditioner selected with higher capacity then requirement then it will cools the room and get auto-stop before removing the humidity from air, this will leads to uncomfortable inside room as room is cool and moist air will make you feel damp and clammy. 

Also higher capacity will ultimately leads to reduction in air conditioner efficiency.

Check your Room size appropriately:-

It is often practice to measure room size in Square feet’s.  For rooms are square and rectangular in shape than simply multiply the length into width. For Triangular rooms multiply Length and breadth and divide the area calculated by two to arrive at size of room. If room shapes are complex then you have to calculate room size accordingly or take help from sales executives to arrive at exact area.

Cooling capacity according to room size

Cooling capacity requirements will be calculated with help of BTU per hour i.e. British Thermal units. Now from BTU size of air conditioner can be calculated. For taking out heat of 12000 BTU/Hour size of air conditioner required is 1 ton so by using this air conditioner size can be chosen. Below table will help you out in selection of air conditioner according to BTU/Hour. 

Area To Be Cooled (square feet)	Capacity Needed (BTUs per hour)	Air conditioner size
100 up to 150	5,000	0.5 ton
150 up to 250	6,000	0.5 ton
250 up to 300	7,000	0.75 ton
300 up to 350	8,000	0.75 ton
350 up to 400	9,000	0.75 ton or next higher size 1 ton
400 up to 450	10,000	1 ton
450 up to 550	12,000	1 ton
550 up to 700	14,000	1.25 ton or 1.5 ton if 1.25 not available
700 up to 1,000	18,000	1.5 ton
1,000 up to 1,200	21,000	1.75 ton or 2 ton of 1.75 ton not available
1,200 up to 1,400	23,000	2 ton
1,400 up to 1,500	24,000	2 ton
1,500 up to 2,000	30,000	2.5 ton
2,000 up to 2,500	34,000	3 ton

There are following parameters which will also be considered or taken care:-

(i)                  If room is considerably shaded than reduce your air conditioner requirement by 10%

(ii)                If room is front facing of sun then increase the capacity of air conditioner by 10%

(iii)           If there are persons more than 2 in a room then add 600 BTU per person in capacity addition i.e. increase of 5% capacity.

(iv)           If you are needed to add this unit into Kitchen then you should add heat generated during cooking i.e. add capacity of 4000-5000 BTUs in your capacity i.e. increase the capacity by at-least 30%

Location of Indoor and outdoor unit in room:-

(i)            Following points might be considered while installation of air conditioner in room

(ii)          Indoor Unit installation points:

(iii)         Air conditioner should be installed at location where air will be evenly distributed in whole room.

(iv)        Air conditioner should be installed at appropriate height. Usually height of air conditioner should not be more than 7-9 feet as if height is more than that than air conditioner mere serve the purpose of cooling your roof only. 

(v)          Try to install air conditioner above bed so that effective cooling can be obtained. Few don’t like air directly on body so you can install air conditioner on wall which is towards your feet or you can change direction of air using louvers

Outdoor Unit location:

         i.        Outdoor unit should be installed in open space i.e. terrace of house or if terrace isn’t available than you can hand the same external wall of house. It should be always installed were free flow of air is available so that air can flow above compressor and condenser.

       ii.            Outdoor unit location should be easily accessible so that easy maintenance can be carried out.

      iii.            One very important point should be considered while installation of outdoor unit is that outdoor unit should always be installed above the position of indoor unit so that free flow of refrigerant can be achieved and compressor can function to full capacity. If outdoor unit location is below indoor unit then some of compressor capacity is utilized in pumping the refrigerant to indoor unit. This will leads to overall lower performance of compressor.

     iv.            Last but foremost important point of installation of outdoor unit is that distance between indoor and outdoor unit. In tubing refrigerant at very low temperature flows inside tubing between indoor and outdoor unit. There is always loss of some refrigerant to atmosphere from tubing so it is always advisable to install outdoor unit as closer to indoor unit as possible to reduce the loss of the cooling effect. The maximum distance between the indoor and the outdoor units can be about 15 meters.
Dif      
           Difference between single Stage and Two Stage compressor Air conditioners:-   
          Difference between these two air conditioners are basically levels of operation in air conditioners
          Single Stage air conditioners compressors only works on single level of operation i.e. only for cooling the area, but two stage air conditioners compressors have two levels of operation i.e. they cool the room at full level as in case of single stage air conditioner compressors and provide mild cooling when temperature outside is not very high.
            So dual stage compressor technology provides comfortable cooling as per requirements.
           So there are following benefits of dual stage compressor technology in air conditioners
            As these air conditioners provided cooling as per requirements and don't always operate at full level as in case of single stage compressor air conditioners so these leads to energy savings , which will leads to lower down your electricity bill.
           Second most important advantage is that they provide comfortable cooling.

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