how long do house ac units last

What size A/C unit do you need to cool a 1,300-square-foot house? A 25,000 BTU unit should comfortably cool down a 1,300-square-foot house. BTU stands for British thermal unit and is a traditional unit to measure energy. It is defined as the amount of heat required to raise by 1 degree Fahrenheit the temperature of 1 pound of water. What size air conditioner do I need for my house? The capacity of an air-conditioning unit is sometimes measured in tons, and there are 12,000 BTU in a ton. Air-conditioning units also have an energy efficiency rating separate from their cooling capacity. The energy efficiency rating of an AC is equal to its BTU rating over wattage. The higher the rating is, the less energy a unit consumes. How many BTUs does a furnace need to heat a large home? The size of a home does not dictate the furnace British thermal unit output needed to heat it properly or efficiently. Several factors must be considered w... How much is a Goodman air handler?
Prices for Goodman air handlers vary widely depending on the model and size of the unit, with prices ranging between $400 to $1000 dollars for most units, ... How do you change Lennox furnace filters? Replace a Leonnox furnace filter by turning off the unit, locating the filter, determining if it is reusable, purchasing the correct size filter, and insta... What are some tips for choosing a central AC unit for your home? When choosing a central air condition unit, it is important to consider size, cost and type of unit. The choice of size is particularly important, as an im... Are window air conditioners expensive to run? Who sells Baxi boilers? Where can gas cut-off valves be purchased? Where can LG ductless heat pumps be purchased online? What are options for portable AC units without exhaust pipes? What factors affect the cost to move a house?As a committed TreeHugger, one of the most important goals of my recent house renovation was to reduce energy consumption per person.
The first thing many people do in a renovation is replace all the windows, even though study after study have shown that it has just about the worst bang for the buck of anything you can do. It also doesn't even make that much difference; a single paned window has an R value of perhaps 1, a new double glazed window between 2 and 4 unless you go very, very expensive.Then there is the issue of character and appearance. outside ac unit will not stay onMy 100 year old house has beautiful 100 year old windows, with divided lights at the top that give the house its charm. properly installing window ac unitThey will also last as long as the house; what air conditioning unit should i buydouble glazed units will not, as they lose their seal and the argon leaks out, as the vinyl or finger-jointed wood deteriorates.
The salesmen keep pitching the energy savings of replacement windows; It's a huge problem for those of us concerned about preservation and conservation, where replacement windows ruin heritage houses, at great cost to owners and for very little long term gain.But double hung windows are very hard to seal, the spaces where the counterweights go are big empty wind tunnels. Air leakage becomes a far bigger problem with them than heat loss through the glass.One solution that has been around for a while is the window insert, an acrylic window that fits inside your existing windows, often held in place with snap fittings or magnetic strips. I have been considering them for years, but worried about the fit (thanks to settlement over the years, all these windows are parallelograms, not rectangles) and the look of the strips that held the windows in.Then there is the Indow window. It has a compression tube around the edge that holds it in place so that nothing needs to be fastened to the window frame.
This also seals it really tightly to the frame so that there is no air leakage around it. But what I found most impressive in discussions with Indow was their measuring system, where they promised that they could deal with parallelogram or trapezoid windows.In their literature, Indow promises an almost doubling of the R value of my single glazed windows, from R-1 to R-1.87. That's not a lot, but not much worse that replacement windows that cost a whole lot more. But as I mentioned earlier, that is only one of a number of factors that affect comfort, which is really a misunderstood concept. Engineer Robert Bean explains that your body absorbs or radiates heat from the surrounding surfaces:The less efficient a building, the greater the temperature difference between your skin and the temperatures of the walls, windows, doors, floors and ceilings. It is the temperature differences between you and the building which causes discomfort.These walls and windows are COLD, as seen in this thermal image taken last January, pre-construction.
It was always uncomfortable in this bay window. Even the piano was suffering.However the Indow insert promised to significantly reduce draftiness, to well below even what new windows would deliver. And although noise from the street is not a problem where we live, even the standard inserts offer significant noise reduction. They don't feel cold, because acrylic is not as good a conductor as glass.Michael Ruehle, an Indow authorized dealer with GREENheart Buildings Inc, arrived with a little laser measuring device and a netbook running an online program, and measured the length and width of the windows. Then he used the clever little device to measure the diagonals, and entered all the data into the program. Voila: a trapezoid is on the screen.A few days ago he returned with the inserts. They are delivered with a protective coating on the acrylic which is peeled off; then the window is pushed into place.You can see here how seriously distorted the window frame is, compared to the window itself.