Do you feel like your cooling bills are a little higher than last year’s? Is your air conditioner starting to get up there in age and you feel like it’s losing some efficiency? As air conditioners age, two things start to happen: they start to wear down and become less efficient, and newer, more energy efficient models continue to come out. In fact, an air conditioner that is just 10 years old could be 60% less efficient than a more recently built AC!
When should you upgrade your AC?
Want to know how much money you could save by upgrading your air conditioner? It’s pretty simple if you can keep a couple of things straight (we’ll keep the numbers simple for this exercise, you can replace them with whatever’s appropriate). First, figure out:
- How much you spend on air conditioner repair in one season
- How many watts your current AC consumers
- How many watts the AC upgrade consumes
- Approximately how many hours per day your air conditioner will be running
- Assume the following: 4 mo x 30 days/mo x 12 hrs / day = 1440 hrs
- What the rate of a kilowatt-hour (kWh) is for your area
- Assume you pay $.10 / kWh
Now let’s say we have two 3-ton (36,000 BTU) air conditioners: one with 10 SEER and the other with 15 SEER. To get the wattage each consumes, divide the BTUs by the SEER
- 10 SEER = 3,600 watts
15 SEER = 2,400 watts
Only a few more steps. Multiply the wattage by the amount of hours your AC will be running and the cost per kilowatt hour:
- 10 SEER = [(3,600 watts x 1440 hours) / (1000 watts / kWh)] x $.10.kWh = $518.40
- 15 SEER = [(2,400 watts x 1440 hours) / (1000 watts / kWh)] x $.10.kWh = $345.60
Subtract the differences to get the amount you will save with the more efficient AC:
- 518.40 – 345.60 = 172.8 per season.
Factor in the amount you spend on air conditioner repair every season and compare that to the price of a new air conditioner to figure out the payback period of air conditioner upgrade.
If you’ve done the math and decided that an air conditioner upgrade will provide a significant return on investment, or if you want a professional HVAC company to help you figure this out, call Magnolia Heating & Air Conditioning today!