Consumer reviews represent the best source of information about customer satisfaction with If you're installing central air, you need to consider three things: the quality of the equipment that you buy, the output and efficiency of that equipment, and the experience of the contractor installing it. All of these factors will affect your satisfaction. No organization rates the quality of central air conditioners, so the experiences of other people that own the same equipment matters a lot. Consider helping out by writing a review -- you don't have to be an A/C expert to tell people whether you are satisfied with your current air conditioner. We have reviews on the following brands of central air conditioners: Day & Night reviews Energi Air Systems reviews International Comfort Products reviews Style Crest Products reviews The opinions expressed in these reviews are the opinions of consumers that submitted reviews toThe performance of your cooling and heating system is determined in a large part by your HVAC equipment’s operating efficiency.

Each “matched system” – an outdoor compressor bearing unit that matches with an indoor unit – is tested and awarded an Energy Efficiency Rating, sort of like a miles per gallon (mpg) rating for your car. The more cooling/heating a system puts out for each unit of energy it consumes, the higher rating it will receive.  The higher the efficiency rating of your system, the less energy it will consume…that means lower utility bills and less of an impact on the environment.used ac units for home Also, utility companies will often compensate homeowners to the tune of hundreds of dollars to install high-efficiency systems.  does an ac unit use gasUse our Rebate Finder to see what rebates are available to you when you install a high efficiency system.air conditioner unit for apartment

For air conditioners, this metric is called a SEER rating, Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio.  Higher the SEER ratings mean greater efficiency. As of January 2006, the federal government mandates that all new central air conditioning equipment be at least SEER-13, but there is equipment available rated as high as SEER-18 and even SEER-23 . ACDoctor urges you to install an air conditioning system that is at least SEER-16, especially if you live in the Sunbelt where air conditioning systems run most often. Use our Cooling Calculator to see the impact on your wallet and your environmental footprint that higher SEER air conditioning can have for you. A homeowner in Florida who installs an 16 SEER system can save $2,070 in operating costs over the lifespan of their system and will prevent nearly 30,000 pounds of Green House Gases from being released into the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing 3 cars from the road each year or planting 4 acres of forest. *Assumes 2,985 cooling hours, a 16 SEER 3 ton versus a 13 SEER 3 ton unit,  electricity cost of $0.1113/kWh, & an operating life of 12 years.

Amazingly, one in four furnaces in U.S. homes today is more than 20 years old and should be replaced with new high-efficiency systems. The Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) is the most widely used measure of a furnace’s efficiency.  This is the measurement of the percentage of heat delivered to your house from each unit of fuel. Standard systems might have an AFUE of 80%, which means the furnace converts 80% of the fuel it burns in to heat for your home while the other 20% is lost out of a chimney. High-efficiency furnaces can be over 95% AFUE. Air Source Heat Pumps, often used in moderate climates to heat and cool a home, are rated by a Heating and Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) Heat Pumps use the difference between outdoor and indoor air temperatures to cool and heat your home much like standard air conditioners do.  The difference is that Heat Pumps can cycle in both directions and can therefore provide cooling in the summer months and heating in the winter.

High efficiency Heat Pumps have a higher Heating and Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) and use less energy than conventional models. Most air conditioners have their capacity rated in British thermal units (Btu). A Btu is the amount of heat necessary to raise the temperature of 1 pound (0.45 kilograms) of water one degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius). One Btu equals 1,055 joules. In heating and cooling terms, one ton equals 12,000 Btu. A typical window air conditioner might be rated at 10,000 Btu. For comparison, a typical 2,000-square-foot (185.8 square meters) house might have a 5-ton (60,000-Btu) air conditioning system, implying that you might need perhaps 30 Btu per square foot. These are rough estimates. To size an air conditioner accurately for your specific application, you should contact an HVAC contractor. The energy efficiency rating (EER) of an air conditioner is its Btu rating over its wattage. As an example, if a 10,000-Btu air conditioner consumes 1,200 watts, its EER is 8.3 (10,000 Btu/1,200 watts).

Obviously, you would like the EER to be as high as possible, but normally a higher EER is accompanied by a higher price. Let's say you have a choice between two 10,000-Btu units. One has an EER of 8.3 and consumes 1,200 watts, and the other has an EER of 10 and consumes 1,000 watts. Let's also say that the price difference is $100. To determine the payback period on the more expensive unit, you need to know approximately how many hours per year you will be operating the air conditioner and how much a kilowatt-hour (kWh) costs in your area. Assuming you plan to use the air conditioner six hours a day for four months of the year, at a cost of $0.10/kWh. The difference in energy consumption between the two units is 200 watts. This means that every five hours the less expensive unit will consume one additional kWh (or $0.10) more than the more expensive unit. Let's do the math: With roughly 30 days in a month, you're operating the air conditioner: 4 months x 30 days per month x 6 hours per day = 720 hours