North Carolina is famous for rich food, southern hospitality and warm, muggy summers. When the weather starts to heat up in Charlotte, what kind of air conditioner is best to keep your family cool and comfortable at home? According to Alan Love of Charlotte heating and cooling company Tier 1 Heating & Air, there are several things to consider when choosing an HVAC system for your Charlotte home. Here are just a few.
Furnace vs. Air Conditioner
“One thing that may be surprising to homeowners in Charlotte,” Love says, “is that we actually have more heating days here than cooling days.” For this reason, he says, a Charlotte homeowner can get more benefit out of investing in a higher-end furnace rather than a top-of-the-line air conditioner when choosing an HVAC system. When designing new systems for his customers, Love says he really tries to steer them toward highly efficient, variable-speed furnaces. “When it’s hot here, it’s so hot that it gets a lot of attention,” Love says. “But the reality is that the weather is cold more often than it’s hot.”
Heat Load Calculation
In order to choose the right air conditioner for your home, Love says, you first need to conduct a heat load calculation. Heat load, he explains, is the term for the amount of heating or cooling required to maintain a desired temperature within a structure. A heat load calculation is the best way to determine the correct size for your home’s air conditioning system. The calculation will take into account the direction each wall of your home faces, room sizes, the number and sizes of your home’s windows, and construction factors like insulation and siding.
Humidity
Another factor to consider, says Love, is how your air conditioner will handle humidity. Humidity is a real issue for homeowners in Charlotte, where outdoor moisture levels are very high in the summer. “When designing an HVAC system for a home in Charlotte,” he says, “you need to think about how the system will remove moisture from the home in the summer, but also how the system will replace moisture in the winter, when the air dries out.”
Humidity, Love says, almost more than any other factor, affects how cold or warm you feel inside your home. When indoor humidity is high, you feel warmer. When there is less moisture in the air, you feel cooler. “There are a number of different ways for your air conditioner to deal with humidity – no one solution is the best,” Love says. “Just be sure that dehumidification is something you consider when you’re purchasing an HVAC system, because getting humidity out of the air will improve your comfort level, even at a higher temperature.”
The Right Contractor
Choosing the right contractor is a big part of selecting the right HVAC system for your home, Love says. “At Tier 1 Heating & Air,” he says, “we believe in providing HVAC the way it ought to be. That means you’ll not only get the right system for your home, you’ll also get Charlotte’s best customer service and our ‘Oughta-Be Guarantee.’”