Residential AC Units & SEER Ratings, What Do They Mean?

When shopping for a new AC unit for your home or office, SEER is a measurement which AC contractors will often refer to about various AC units.  SEER stands for “seasonal energy efficiency ratio.”  Essentially it is how efficient your new unit will be after installation.  Older units typically have a 7 or 8 SEER rating, which is extremely low compared to today’s standards.

Seasonal efficiency is a new and more realistic way of measuring the true energy efficiency of heating and cooling air conditioning products over an entire year. A new rating system has been developed and must be used by all manufacturers. These ratings introduce: Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) value in cooling and Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP) value in heating. These ratings measure annual energy consumption and efficiency in typical day-to-day use and they take into account temperature fluctuations and standby periods to give a clear and reliable indication of the typical energy efficiency over an entire heating or cooling season. Until 2013, the air conditioning industry used a ‘nominal’ ratio for cooling (EER) and heating (COP). Nominal efficiency gives an indication of how efficient an air conditioner is when operating at full load in nominal conditions (not often achieved). A more accurate method – the ‘seasonal efficiency’ ratio (SEER) – has been developed, which gives a better measure of the real-life energy efficiency of systems. Seasonal efficiency gives an indication of how efficient an air conditioner is when operating over an entire cooling or heating season (giving a more realistic efficiency measure).

The federal government mandates that every new unit be at least 13 SEER, which is significantly higher than many units currently in homes around the country.  By replacing your AC unit, you will notice a huge difference in your heating and cooling bill, because of the increased SEER rating.

The highest available SEER rating for an air conditioning system is 25.00 SEER with the Lennox XC25 system. You can learn more about this system by contacting Michael Thoen at AAA Heating & Cooling.

If you are looking for AC contractors to install a new, high-SEER unit in your home or office, visit AAA Heating and Cooling.  As a home comfort advisor Michael Thoen can provide a great system at an affordable price.

[Photo by: trenttsd, via CC License]