Heating and Cooling Info From Warmair.net
Efficiencies
Energy conservation has become an important part of the environment. Manufacturing
equipment and maintaining it for peek performance is a priority.
The federal government has also established guidelines for minimal
efficiency ratings on equipment. Electric powered machines, for
example, air conditioning systems, used to be rated with a C.O.P.
(coefficient of performance), which was a ratio of output divided
by input. Useful to engineers, this factor did not give consumers
much to go on. To improve comparison shopping, a new rating EER
(energy efficiency ratio) was added to the specification tags
on A/C units. This is a ratio of cooling capacity in BTUs per
hour divided by the electrical power in watts. Since this number
could vary under different climatic or room temperatures, a new
rating, SEER (seasonal energy efficiency rating), became the current
guideline. This is an EER adjusted to be an average rating for
operation of the machine over a wide range of conditions.
The minimal rating for residential central air conditioning systems has been
set at 10. Higher efficiency units will use less electricity to
run, but are more expensive to purchase. The consumer must weigh
the installation cost against the amount of use the system will
get. The new gas powered heat pumps are rated at a remarkable
SEER of 27 or higher, and operate similar to a co-generator (the
heat produced by the engine that powers the compressor is added
to the heat pump circulation of refrigerant). All air conditioning
and heat pump units must have a SEER rating from the manufacturer.
Window units, central systems, splits, rooftops, etc., must carry
a label with the information listed.
When a technician adjusts the air-to-fuel mixture on an oil or gas burning appliance
(some gas units are preset by the factory and cannot be adjusted),
a comparison is made between the heat of combustion and the heat
of exhaust. The heat captured by the exchanger is its efficiency.
With the help of instruments and charts, conditions for clean
combustion, such as smoke and carbon monoxide or dioxide or oxygen
output become part of the computation, and an efficiency rating
in percentage can be determined. This is done on site. The manufacturer
is required to test the appliance under a variety of conditions
and give it a rating as A.F.U.E. (annualized fuel utilization
efficiency). Similar to the SEER rating, it gives the consumer
a guideline to use toward the purchase of the furnace or boiler.
A label must be attached to the machine listing this information.
The label affixed at the factory listing the efficiency rating does not
have to be permanent. Improvements in equipment are being made
constantly, and the labels may change more often than the cabinets
of the appliances.
Copyright © 1999 Warmair.com, Inc.
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