Do you know how to tell how much energy your central air conditioning unit is using?
It should come to no surprise to you that your central air conditioning unit is an expensive appliance to run. Even those with a great energy star rating are going to cause your electric bill to make a sudden leap once summer takes hold in Missouri. Do you know how to tell how much energy your central air conditioning unit is using? More importantly, do you know how to improve that consumption?
What does BTU and Watts Mean?
You first need a crash course in BTU and watts to completely understand how much extra money it costs to run your air conditioner. Start by thinking of a typical light bulb. You know that a 60 watt bulb is giving off less light than a 75 watt bulb. But the 75 watt bulb is using 75 watts in an hour to keep it on, while the other is only using 60. That spinning round thing on your electric meter outside is measuring those watts and adding them up. If you were to only have that one lamp with the 75 watt bulb inside going in your house, it would cause that disc to turn 75 times in one hour.
The BTU rating lets you know how much of an area the central air conditioning unit can cool. Depending on its size, your central air conditioning unit is using roughly between 20,000 to 150,000 BTUs. Of course, just like with the light bulb, the higher the number the more watts it uses.
So let’s be conservative and consider that your Missouri home has an air conditioning unit with a BTU rating of 36,000. That’s about 4,500 watts an hour to run. Now think about how many hours a month your unit is running. Say for half a day, that’s 12 hours, for 31 days (it’s August) means 372 hours at 4,500 watts an hour. That means that 1,674,000 watts are being spent a month just to cool off your house. It is a good thing that you are billed in kilowatts. Every thousand watts is equal to one kilowatt. So your A/C unit cost you 1,674 kW for the month of August.
The average rate for residential electricity is 10.17 cents per kW. To make it easy let’s just call that ten cents. That’s equals about $170 a month. Just for the A/C.
How Can You Improve Your Consumption?
So what can you do? Other than frying inside of your home in August, the best thing you can do is make sure that your A/C unit is maintained regularly by an HVAC technician. Also ask them for advice on how to maximize your home’s efficiency. It may even be of help to you to have a zoning system installed. This allows you to control the air flow by directing it only to those areas of the home that need to be cooled during a certain time.
The goal is to try and bring down the consumption. Turning the air conditioner on and off won’t help.
Contact Air Excellence Heating & Cooling
Air Excellence Heating & Cooling has more than 30 years experience in the HVAC business. We can provide expert maintenance and repair services for all kinds of air conditioning units. Our company is licensed, insured, and bonded and our technicians are well experienced. Therefore, we ensure that you receive the best possible service. To learn more about our air conditioner maintenance and repair services, contact us today at (636) 980-0998.