call for a free quote: 928-763-7571
Learning center
Refrigerant facts
Refrigerants are not something you need to worry too much about. Whatever refrigerant you have in your system now is fine. Most units over 10 years old have R-22. The new government regulations are for the air conditioning manufacturers. They cannot build them with R-22 refrigerant in them. R-22 has chlorine along with other chemicals that deteriorate the ozone layer. The new refrigerant of choice is R-410a. That is what's being put in all new systems today. When you decide to replace your system it will come precharged with R-410a. read installations for more info...
SEER, EER, HSPF , ETC...
Heading 2
These are all ratings of one thing or another. The one that you should be concerned about is the SEER rating. This is the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. It's a calculation of how much energy input to that particular unit and the output amount of cooling actually produced .So the higher the SEER the more cooling you get for the same amount of electricity usage. This has no regard to size.
How many tons should I have?
This is a very good question. Which there can be more than one answer. There are several factors to consider when sizing a unit The best way is the use of a manual J load calculations program. If the correct information is entered into the program it will give the correct heat loss/gain to size unit correctly 90-95% . It takes quite a few years experience to know when you will have to upgrade vs. guessing.
As a rule of thumb here in the west 400sq ft. per ton of cooling . So if you had a 1200 sq ft home your unit would be a 3 ton. But , you may have a 2.5 ton to 3.5 ton depending on the heat calcs. The best way to tell if you do have correct size if during the hottest part of summer (115) does the inside maintain (75 to 78) temperature. It may run almost all day long but if it holds temp. It's fine.
Most systems are over sized just a bit to overcome those days when it reaches 120 or more. The a/c's are built to run at 115 maximum operating temperature. So anything above that they decrease in output. So you have either a unit that's too large for 90% of year . Or one that is too small for 10% of the year.
Now they offer 2 stage units to remedy this. There's also mini-splits to supplement the cooling .Just ask a team member for more info.