{"id":634,"date":"2022-07-04T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/?p=634"},"modified":"2022-07-01T18:03:03","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T23:03:03","slug":"how-cool-can-ac-make-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/air-conditioning-service\/how-cool-can-ac-make-house\/","title":{"rendered":"How Cool Can My AC Make My House?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"woman-freezing-cold\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever looked at the thermostat in your home and thought about how cold you might be able to make the rooms if it could be set lower than the 60\u201363\u00b0F? That\u2019s the usual limit on thermostats, and people rarely want the house any colder than that. They rarely want it colder than 68\u00b0F! But could<\/em> the air conditioning system conceivably cool the house even lower? Or, to put it another way, just what is the cooling limit for your AC?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answering these questions isn\u2019t only an exercise in hypotheticals. You can learn important facts about how your AC runs and how best to manage thermostat settings when you know an air conditioner\u2019s limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Capacity vs. Temperature Differential<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What you need to know to understand the cooling limits of an air conditioner is the difference between an AC\u2019s capacity<\/em> and its temperature differential<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The capacity<\/em><\/strong> of an air conditioner is how much cooling it can put out\u2014or literally how much heat it can pump out\u2014from an indoor space in a given time. This varies significantly across different systems, and finding the right capacity is an essential part of selecting an AC for installation. An air conditioner must be correctly sized so its cooling capacity matches the house. Too little capacity and the AC won\u2019t be able to meet standard comfort requirements and will continue to run and run. Too much capacity and the AC will short-cycle, turning off after a short time and then starting back up again because it\u2019s too quickly lowering the temperature. AC capacity is measured in \u201ctons\u201d of cooling, which we discussed at length in a recent blog post<\/a>. Most residential ACs have 5 to 10-ton capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temperature differential<\/em><\/strong> is the measurement of how much the AC can lower the temperature of the air that enters it through the return air ducts. This is different from capacity because it\u2019s fixed\u2014no matter the capacity of the air conditioner, the amount of space it cools to a comfortable temperature\u2014the temperature differential is the same. An air conditioner can lower the temperature of incoming air by a maximum of 20\u00b0F. <\/em>So no matter how low you set the thermostat, the air conditioner will only be able to drop the indoor temperature by 20\u00b0F. This is true even of an air conditioner that\u2019s perfectly sized for a house. If the air going into the AC is 90\u00b0F, it can extract at most enough heat to get the air cooled to 70\u00b0F. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that this 20\u00b0F differential is more than enough to deal with the heat in a home on almost all days (provided the AC is the right capacity). The air inside a house is usually already cooler than the air outdoors because of insulation, and the recommended temperature for comfort is around 78\u00b0F. Even if you set the thermostat to 72\u00b0F, the AC can handle that as long as the air entering the return ducts is 92\u00b0F or lower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recommend not setting your thermostat lower than 68\u00b0F during the summer to ensure that you\u2019ll keep the AC within its temperature differential. You shouldn\u2019t have any trouble staying cool all summer long this way. If your AC does have trouble keeping up, you may need air conditioning repair in Conway, AR<\/a>. Call us and we\u2019ll take care of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dewees HVAC proudly serves the Conway area. <\/strong>Call us for air conditioning service\u2014we\u2019re here to keep you comfortable!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can learn important facts about how your AC runs and how best to manage thermostat settings when you know an air conditioner\u2019s limits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[104,87],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-conditioning-service","tag-air-conditioning-repair","tag-conway"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dewees-hvac.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}