The Anatomy Of A Highly Efficient AC Unit

If you are buying AC units for a commercial facility, size is only one concern. In order to keep your cooling costs low, you need to make sure that your AC units are properly sized to keep your building cool. But, all other conditions being the same, a low efficiency AC unit will cost more money to run than a highly efficient unit. Thus, you need to know how to recognize a highly efficient unit when you see one. 

Larger Coils

An AC unit will use evaporator coils to absorb heat from the air inside your building and condenser coils to release that heat into the atmosphere. The larger the coils are that your unit uses, the more efficient it will be in both absorbing and releasing heat. 

Variable-Speed Motor

While it should be readily apparent which unit has the larger coils, you will have to read the description of an AC unit to discover whether it has a variable-speed motor. The benefit of such a motor is that it will be able to adapt its output to the cooling needs of your building. Thus, when it is cooler in the morning and evening, your fan will run at low, energy-sipping speeds, but it will still be able to run at high speeds to cope with higher cooling demands during the heat of the day. 

Multiple Condensers

As you are reading through the description of an AC unit, you should also look for units that have more than one condenser, which will improve the unit's ability to tune its output to the cooling need. When the cooling load is light, the unit will use the smaller condenser; as the load increases, it will switch to the larger condenser; and when the need for cooling peaks, it will use both condensers. 

When you combine a variable-speed motor with more than one condenser, you may get a unit that will run for longer periods of time than a unit with a single-speed, single-condenser unit, but just as a driver that runs an engine consistently at a low speed uses less fuel than a driver that guns the engine from stoplight to stoplight, a highly efficient AC unit will use less energy and save you money on cooling costs. As an added advantage, you should not have to worry about swings in temperature as your unit will maintain a consistent level of cooling. Make an informed choice and save money on your next AC purchase. Contact commercial HVAC contractors for more information.


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