AC Unit Size for House

Michelle Hill is hot and bothered in her Crosby, Texas home.

It does get very hot in Texas in the summer.

Here's what she wrote to me:

"If my house is a little over 1,700 sq ft including the attached garage, how big should the AC be?"

Here's my answer:

Michelle, it's not that easy.

Two houses that are the EXACT same type, size, design, etc. on the same street can have DIFFERENT sized AC units!

It's all a matter of calculating the heat gain of the house.

Let's say the two houses I'm talking about have a large wall of windows and glass doors on the back side to take advantage of a view.

The street runs north and south.

This means in one house the window wall points west and on the other house the window wall faces east.

The house with the window wall facing west will require a larger AC unit. This is because this house has the demon sun light, hot as lava, pouring in the windows during the HOTTEST PART of the day.

READ this past column of mine to understand how you size an AC unit.