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Air conditioning is no longer considered a luxury during these hot and humid summers in Southern Ontario and the majority of homes now have central air conditioning. This consists of an outdoor unit, an evaporator coil above the furnace, and interconnecting refrigerant lines. Some homes are cooled with a heat pump. The heat pump may still be functioning as a heating appliance (in conjunction with an electric or oil furnace). In some homes, however, the heating function of the heat pump has been replaced by a gas furnace. In this case, the heat pump should be used just for cooling.
Warning: If you have a heat pump that is no longer used for heating and has been converted into an air conditioner, it is very important that you don’t try to use it to heat. You should have a certified technician examine the heat pump to determine whether it should be used as a heating appliance.
How air conditioners work
The air conditioner works by first removing humidity in the house and then cooling the air. For this reason, air conditioners do not cool as quickly as furnaces heat. Once a house gets hot, it can take up to 18 hours to get the temperature you want. Select a reasonable temperature (23–24ºC) and let the air conditioner look after it for you automatically. A properly sized air conditioner will keep the house about 8ºC cooler than the air outside. On really hot days the unit will run continuously and remove humidity, but it may not hold your set temperature. Do NOT operate your air conditioner when the outside temperature is below 13ºC, as damage could occur to the compressor.
What you can expect from your air conditioner
When it gets hot, our service department gets a lot of calls complaining that the "air conditioner isn't cooling enough". Often the problem is that people expect to have as much control of their air conditioner as they do of their furnace. However, furnaces and air conditioners are different in two important ways.
First, no matter how cold it gets, your furnace can easily do its job: as it gets colder, the furnace simply burns more fuel. But an air conditioner has to perform two big jobs in a warm house. The first, and most stressful job, is to dehumidify the air. The second job is to cool the air. Because it has to control both humidity and temperature, an air conditioner’s technology is both more complex and more sensitive to wear-and-tear than that of a furnace.
Second, furnaces are designed to keep your home warm on the coldest possible days of winter. Air conditioners are designed to handle the cooling load of the average summer day in a specific area (in our case, Ottawa). The industry standards for air conditioner installation and operation are established for every North American city by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). For example, in Ottawa, we design a residential air conditioning system to achieve an indoor temperature of 75°F (23.8°C) when the outside temperature is 88°F (31.1°C), assuming a well designed and unrestricted duct system to properly distribute air throughout the home. This means that you can’t expect your air conditioner to cool your home to 20°C when it is 34°C outside.
How to get the most from your air conditioner
Ensure good air flow. Air conditioners need a lot more air flow than furnaces do to function properly. Unfortunately, many duct systems are designed to meet the minimum requirement for heating systems, which means that there isn’t nearly enough air to cool a house properly, no matter how big the air conditioner is. Other sources of restricted air flow include undersized or oversized furnace plenums, poorly installed ducts with improper takeoffs, and excess bends in the duct work. You should also ensure that supply and return vents are not blocked with furniture.
Have your cooling system serviced every summer. Your air conditioner’s efficiency will decrease dramatically if it isn’t cleaned and checked regularly. A good maintenance check-up will take care of air flow restrictions such as a dirty furnace blower, filter, and coil.
Don’t make big thermostat adjustments. A furnace can be expected to warm up the house in an hour or so even if the thermostat has been turned off for a while. This is not true for an air conditioner! If a brick house sits all day with the air conditioner off, it can take as long as 18 hours to cool it back down. The air conditioner has to remove all the humidity that accumulated during the day, and bricks store heat, which radiates into the house long after the sun goes down. To avoid undue wear-and-tear on your air conditioner and save costly repairs, it’s best to set your thermostat to a reasonable temperature for the whole summer.
Energy-Saving Tip: You can enhance the cooling effect of the air conditioner by closing blinds or drapes during the day, installing ceiling fans, and planting shade trees near the house.
Maintenance
When you have the heating system of your new home checked, you should also have the cooling system inspected, because if you have trouble heating the house, you are guaranteed to have trouble cooling it. It takes much more air to cool a home than it does to heat it. A poorly maintained air conditioner becomes much less efficient, consumes excess hydro, and eventually will not be able to cool the house. Its life will also be shortened considerably. Annual maintenance by a qualified professional is recommended to get the longest life and most reliable service from your unit.
Trouble-shooting
Air conditioners can lose a little efficiency as they get older. This is particularly true if they are not well maintained. If you have a problem with your air conditioner, do yourself a favour and perform the following checks before calling Anchor ClimateCARE for service:
1. Check to see that the filter or air cleaner is clean. This is the most common cause of poor cooling in homes because it restricts air flow.
2. Check to see if the fuse is blown or the breaker is tripped. (The air conditioner operates on a different fuse or breaker than the furnace.)
3. Check the thermostat setting (make sure it is on 'cool').
4. Make sure the outdoor fan is operating.
Warning: Because an air conditioner is also a dehumidifier, water is always present. If you see water leaking into the furnace or onto the floor, or if you see ice build up on the coil above the furnace, immediately turn the air conditioner off, and call Anchor ClimateCARE for service. DO NOT continue to operate the air conditioner when water leaks or you could cause serious damage to your home. This is especially important for air conditioners installed in an attic.
The new environmentally friendly air conditioner
The RUUD UAML is not only the most environmentally friendly air conditioner on the market it is also among the highest quality models from RUUD/RHEEM or anyone else. RUUD has completely redesigned this model from the ground up to utilize PROZONE® refrigerant while embodying the finest features of its other high-end air conditioner models. It uses scroll compressor technology for more efficient and reliable long term operation. This is a 12 SEER high-efficiency unit, which makes it 50% more efficient than most 10- to 15-year old models around today.
RUUD has gone to great lengths to make this one of the quietest units on the market. It would take 16 of these units to create enough noise to equal that of a standard model. Anyone who has had to listen to an old “rattletrap” will appreciate the value of this feature. Since these units operate at significantly higher pressures than R22 units, particular attention must be paid to the installation to ensure that there are no refrigerant leaks. It is also important to have a matching evaporator coil installed with it to obtain the efficiencies designed into the unit.
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