It is summertime and time for you to do an easy, safe, simple check on the performance of your air-conditioning system. National tests have shown that the average air conditioning system usually only delivers 63% of its Rated Btu/hr due to an inadequate/improper install & engineering-design setup. In order to abate extremely costly climate weather extremes we must provide convenient media access to energy efficiency and renewable energy transition literacy-know-how for everyone in America, including in all the schools and also for everyone possible globally. Public radio & television ought to be showing & telling HVAC user/consumers nationwide HOW to check the performance of their air conditioning systems because, few contractors perform any extremely important Btu/hr Delivered Performance benchmark test checkups. Doing these tests & getting technicians to fix those energy wasting problems will help speed the transition to clean low cost renewable energy sources which will help our economy in a multiplicity of highly beneficial ways. This will also help reduce electrical power plant pollution. First, make sure the return air filter & blower wheel blades are clean, then you will need a digital probe thermometer and a low cost percent relative humidity gauge to check the indoor humidity level. If you have an air conditioner that was manufactured between 1992 and 2005 it will be a 10 to 12 SEER R-22 refrigerant unit. The new 14-SEER & higher units have a graduated lower condenser temp-rise due to having a larger coil area, but have the same indoor temp-split drop at 50% indoor relative humidity. When the temperature reaches around 85°F outdoors and the indoor temperature is 78 or 80°F and the relative humidity indoors is right around 50% RH the outdoor condenser air-discharge temperature-split above the outdoor temperature, should be around 20 to 21°F or around 105°F. The new 13-SEER units will also usually be near this condenser temp-range. If the indoor temperature is 75°F and the indoor relative humidity is 50% then the air discharge air temp-split off the condenser should be around 17°F or 102°F off condenser. The indoor temperature split between the return-air at the supply air grille closest to the air handler should be around 19 to 21°F temperature drop with either an 80°F or 75°F indoor temperature @50%RH. This is also the indoor split with the higher SEER units at 13 SEER or above. If the indoor temperature split is too high it may have very low airflow which needs to be brought up to its normal CFM Rate of around 400-CFM per/ton of cooling; 2-Ton 800-CFM. If the outdoor condenser split is too high your air handler may be drawing hot high moisture content air into the return from the attic causing the high condenser discharge air temperature; this will also lower the indoor temp-drop. If the temps are within plus or minus a degree or two, that air-conditioner is performing rather well. On the new air-conditioning systems at 14 SEER & higher the outdoor condenser temp-split is lower than it is on the 10 to 12 SEER units; the indoor temp-split is the same. At 50% indoor relative humidity you can take the temp-drop number *times 1.08 *times the CFM of airflow to get the sensible Btu/hr absorbed by the indoor coil, because of duct temperature & air losses, that doesnt mean all of that heat is being drawn out of the rooms. A higher %RH will lower the temp-drop; lets say mfgers sensible is 80% at those conditions you can multiply the sensible Btu/hr by 1.2 *times to get the total Btu/hr; at 75% sensible *times 1.25 equals total Btu/hr. You can check test the CFM in the furnace heating mode; temp-rise above indoor return air temp * 1.08 / into furnace Btu/hr output. IE., temp-rise 60°F * 1.08 is 64.8; 76,000-Btu/hr furnace output / 64.8 is 1173-CFM air volume flow. You can use your home owners manual to get the cooling CFM. The reason I alone provide these safe, easy, & effective ways to ballpark the performance of your Air Conditioning system is that very few HVAC service persons check the actual delivered Btu/hr performance of the system; the actual delivered to & from the rooms performance of all air-conditioning systems should be checked by competent service technicians with a permanent record left at the air handler in the home. National tests have shown that the average air conditioning system usually only delivers 63% of its Rated Btu/hr due to an inadequate/improper install & engineering-design setup. Therefore, it pays you big-time to easily check you air conditioners operating performance. Once you know its ballpark performance you can compare its runtime & off-time to the Btu/hr of a free load-calc loadcalc.net/ Experts Explain why you need to become HVAC energy efficient literate in a Video: https://youtube/watch?v=JoaQVuplVqA
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 20:33:45 +0000
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