How to keep your cool

"It's a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do."
— Walter Winchell

Summers are getting hotter. And they’re going to continue to get hotter as the years and global warming progress. Hotter weather means more people buying air conditioners to try and keep comfortable. Good news for air conditioner manufacturers, bad news for the environment. More air conditioners in action simply increase carbon emissions, which increases the heat, which leads to more people buying air conditioners. Good news for air conditioner manufacturers …. You get the point.

Air conditioner manufacturers aren’t the bad guys in this scenario, they’ve got to make a living just like everyone else. The real bad guys are those who use their air conditioners indiscriminately, without thought or consideration to anything but keeping cool.

When people want to cool down, they want to do so immediately. The transition between hot and cool must be instant, no waiting. This means that air conditioners are often set way too low. It also happens that in the search for efficiency people buy air cons that are larger than they really need. The fact is that if you cool your space too quickly, you’ll initiate frequent on/off cycles that waste both energy and money. The air will also not be properly dehumidified, creating a stuffy, clammy atmosphere, which can lead to headaches and poor concentration.

Bearing the above in mind, we can say that when it comes to buying an air con, size does matter, and bigger is not necessarily better. The size of the unit you buy is affected by several elements, such as the size of the space to be cooled, the sunlight it receives, as well as the number of appliances and people that occupy it. A unit the removes at least 20 BTUs (British thermal units, used to measure heat) per square foot is considered sufficient for most purposes.

You also want to check the efficiency rating of a unit before you buy it. Air conditioners fall into two broad categories, room and central air cons. Room air cons are rated according to an energy efficiency ratio (EER), which is the amount of BTUs removed per watt of electricity used. Central air cons are rated in a similar manner, but the acronym is different – seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER). The higher the ratio, the more efficient the unit so try to buy the biggest numbers that you can afford.

One last thing that you need to consider before making your purchase is what refrigerant the unit uses. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) were an industry favourite until their ozone damaging properties were discovered. Now a whole list of alternative refrigerants is available. You can see what they are on the Environmental Protection Agency website. Make sure that your unit uses one of these safer options.

There are also things that you can do once the unit has been installed to maintain efficiency and to keep running costs low. Set it at a comfortable temperature, not too cold. Install a programmable thermostat so that the unit runs switches on and off automatically and doesn’t run for hours. Keep the filter clean and have the unit serviced regularly. Lastly, when you decide to upgrade units, make sure you hire a certified technician to remove the old one, so that he or she recovers the unused refrigerant safely.

Summers may be getting hotter and the world may be headed toward hellish heat in the future, but there’s no reason why we should have to suffer in it. The responsible use of air conditioners can save more than money.

Recommended sites:

http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/preview!http:/www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/0604-saving-energy-while-staying-cool.html

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/title6/phaseout/22phaseout.html

Sandra wrote this article for the online marketers Ice Boys air conditioners one of the leading suppliers of air conditioners in the UK.