SEER 101 – What You Need to Know about Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio

If you’ve been reading our blog recently, we’ve been talking a lot about being prepared the hot, post-Memorial Day stickiness to come – especially in our last post.

But what if your air conditioner isn’t up for the hard work of another cooling season?

If the time has come to put your old air conditioner out to pasture, you’re going to need some basic knowledge about how to replace it. This week, we’ll talk about one of the most important factors in choosing a new cooling system: SEER.

SEER 101 – 5 things to know about Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio

  1. SEER measures the energy efficiency of your HVAC system. Think of it like MPG in your car: the higher the SEER rating, the more efficient the unit is at turning energy into cool air.
  2. What SEER actually measures is the total amount of cool air produced during a cooling season (measured in British thermal units, or Btus) compared to the amount of energy consumed (in watt hours) during the same period.
  3. New A/C units and heat pumps are required by law to produce a minimum SEER rating of 13. This is significant because some older A/C units can have a SEER rating as low as 8 – which means they use double the energy to produce the same amount of cold air as a similarly sized unit with a SEER rating of 16!
  4. Most the central air conditioning units sold today have SEER ratings between 16 and 20; some ductless models have SEER ratings as high as 33!
  5. The “payback period” is the time it takes to recover the extra cost of buying a higher-SEER A/C unit (prices increase by about 8-10 percent for every 1-point increase in SEER rating, all other things being equal). An 18 SEER central air conditioner could take as little as 3 years to pay for itself over a 14 SEER unit, depending on the workload (more work = faster payback period).

Of course SEER rating isn’t the only factor in home cooling efficiency: proper installation and maintenance of your equipment is every bit as important, as is correct matching of the system to the cooling load of your home (we’ll talk about these factors in our next blog).

Contact Carroll Home Services today for a FREE estimate on a new, whisper quiet, high-efficiency air conditioner for your home.

For everything you need in home heating, trust the pros at Carroll Home Services – keeping Maryland homes warm for more than a century! Contact us to get started today!