Dowd Mechanical Heating & Air Conditioning Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Air Conditioning System Installation’

Does an AC Do Enough to Control Indoor Humidity?

Monday, August 22nd, 2022
humidity-on-window

The answer to the question in the title depends on how much humidity your home deals with during the summer. If you don’t normally experience extremely high indoor humidity (relative humidity higher than 70%, although some people find more than 60% uncomfortable), then your AC will be able to keep you cool and happy. The air conditioner is not exactly controlling the humidity—although it’s doing some dehumidification—but it doesn’t have to work hard against humidity to deliver a comfortable environment for your house.

If high humidity is a problem you often encounter during warm weather, then it’s unlikely your AC can do much about it. It can provide cooling, but it won’t make a noticeable effect on humidity because an air conditioning system isn’t equipped to do that job. 

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How Cool Can My AC Make My Home?

Monday, April 4th, 2022
air-conditioner-condenser-3D-render

As we continue with preparations for the arrival of warm weather, we’d like to address a question we often hear from customers: “How cool can an AC make my home?” People often look at the BTUs of an air conditioner, which is a measurement of how many units of heat an AC unit can remove from a house per hour, as an indication of the air conditioner’s cooling power. 

This is mostly correct: the BTUs removed per hour measure the air conditioner’s capacity, the amount of work it can do. An AC that is under-capacity, also known as undersized, for a house will not remove enough heat from the building to provide the desired comfort. When our professionals install a new air conditioner for a home, we carefully measure the home’s cooling requirements so we can match the air conditioner’s capacity to it. 

However, capacity is unrelated to the question of how cool an air conditioning system can make a house. This is a question of the temperature differential. We’ll explain more below.

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