Replacing an older, inefficient heating and cooling system is a great way to save money on your energy bills. Heating and cooling accounts for more than half the energy usage in the home and new heating and cooling systems are much more energy efficient than those installed just ten years ago.
When choosing a replacement system, it is very important to choose a system that is properly sized for your home in order to maximize efficiency and comfort while minimizing the initial cost and operating costs over the life of the system. An air conditioning or heating system that does not have enough capacity will not be able to keep your home comfortable, but the most common mistake is to install a system that is too large.
Don’t let your HVAC contractor simply install a system that is the same size as the existing system. Before homes were tightly built to minimize air leaks, it was very common to install a system that was too large and if you have improved your home by installing weather stripping, additional insulation, or energy efficient windows then replacing the system with a similarly sized system will result in a system that is much too large.
Make sure your HVAC contractor does a proper calculation that takes into account the size of your home, your location, how well insulated the home is, the number of occupants living in the home, number and type of lights in the home, and other factors that affect the size of the system. A system that is too large will have a higher initial cost, higher operating cost, more breakdowns, will not keep your home and family as comfortable as a properly sized unit.
