Btus stand for british thermal units and refer to the amount of energy your air conditioner is using per hour.
Airconditioner floor unit btus by square footage.
Multiply your square footage by 20 btus to get a general estimate.
Air conditioners are sized by the number of btus they put out.
The british thermal unit or btu is an energy unit.
As a rule of thumb an air conditioner needs 20 btu for each square foot of.
To size your mini split air conditioner the most important thing you need to know is the square footage of the room you re looking to cool and or heat.
For example the manual j calculation may say you need 25 000 btus for cooling.
Multiply the two together to get 150 square foot room.
If your btu requirement is between sizes simply go with the bigger unit.
Each indoor unit will be capable of providing a set number of btu s of cooling and heating power.
In order to size your mini split correctly you will need to know the square footage of the room and check it against our table.
Choose the 30 000 btu unit to make sure your comfort needs are covered.
Let s say it is a 10 foot by 15 foot room.
These btu calculations are based on a standard room with 8 foot.
This is done by calculating your square footage.
Having a little extra power isn t bad.
Many factors go into calculating btus so we have put together a set of tools to help with air conditioner sizing.
Simply measure the length and width of a room and figure the square footage.
A 12 000 btu unit could cool a room 25 feet long by 20 feet wide that has 500 square feet of floor area.
The chart below is a great starting point for sizing your ac.
Window air conditioners typically have a cooling capacity ranging from 5 000 to 12 500 british thermal units btu hr.
Air conditioner btu chart.
But your hvac dealer only has air conditioners that handle 24 000 or 30 000 btus.
Choosing the right sized air conditioner can be as easy as using a tape measure and a little mathematics.
1 btu 1 055 joules 252 calories 0 293 watt hour or the energy released by burning one match.
Each air conditioner or heater is rated to produce a certain number of btus.
Typically plan to purchase a heating or cooling unit with 20 btus for every square foot of space you have.
However keep in mind that factors such as your climate zone sun exposure and the number of people living in your home may require you to adjust this figure.
1 watt is approximately 3 412 btu per hour.