Air Conditioners

So you want air conditioning. You’re finally ready to escape the blazing heat and warm humidity by buying those magic boxes that fill rooms up with cold air. There are a few factors to consider to make sure you buy the right air conditioning unit for you. First, a crucial unit of measurement to consider is the British thermal unit, or BTU, which is the unit measuring how much heat is required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. To build off of this, the BTU/hr, or British thermal unit hour, is the unit of heat that an air conditioning unit can remove from a room per hour. For example, an air conditioning unit rated at 1,000 BTU/hr can remove 1,000 British thermal units in one hour, or in other words, cool a pound of water by 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a single hour. All of the air conditioning units on this list utilize the BTU/hr unit of measurement, so it’s important to keep this information in mind when considering which air conditioner to buy. The next topic to discuss is EER vs SEER ratings. To start off, EER is the Energy Efficiency Ratio, simply a numeric value ranging between 8 and 30 used to rate how efficient a particular air conditioner is when it comes to energy-saving. SEER is the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio that works in the same way, but it is a rating that takes into account climate temperature changes caused by the change in seasons.