I bought an air conditioner, what is a BTU?

Question

What does BTU stand for? I just bought an air conditioner that is 10,000 BTU. Is it better if the number is lower like 92000 BTU?

I have a 10,000 BTU portable air conditioner. It is a stand alone (as opposed to sitting on the window) with an exhaust out the window, but it's not bolted correctly and does has some open space to it. It's for a 2 bedroom w/ living room apartment and it doesn't really cool the whole room, but the ac air itself is cold. I saw others that are lower like 9,200 BTU. Is there a reason why my upstairs apartment is still hot even with a 10,000 BTU portable air conditioner?

I would like to cool the room as quickly as possible with what I have. I'd say just 20 x 18 feet for the living room. Starts from 90 degrees lets say with a 10,000 BTU ac. How long should it take to cool to 72 degrees? Would it help to shut all windows and seal all openings?

Answer 1

BTU stands for British thermal unit.....you said the room was 20x18 that is 560 sq ft and then you still have 2 more rooms you want this unit to cool ....10000 BTU is a little bigger than 3/4 tons...at about 650 sq ft per ton you barely have enough air conditioning to cool the living room let alone the two bedrooms also ....one ton is 12000 BTU what you need to do is measure all three rooms figure the square ft of all three rooms add them together and buy a unit that is capable of cooling all three rooms....12000 BTU for every 650 sq ft will work.... unless you have lots of windows and glass doors that face southwest and the daily temperature exceeds 90 degrees and your home isn't insulated well then you lower this number to 500 sq ft per every 12000 BTU... the best BTU number is the one that matches the sq ft you have and will cool good enough not to run continuously.. therefore being more efficient and costing you less to run than one that cannot keep room cool and has to run more being less efficient and therefore costing you more money to run..

Answer 2

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RE:
I bought an air conditioner, what is a BTU?
What does BTU stand for? I just bought an air conditioner that is 10,000 BTU. Is it better if the number is lower like 92000 BTU?

Answer 3

A 10k Btu cooler will absorb as much heat as a 1800 pound block of ice in one 24 hour period.

The higher the Btu, the more heat it will absorb. A higher Btu unit will cool down the same space in a shorter period of time.

To gauge power consumption, check the wattage per hour that the appliance uses. A 36k Btu cooler may have a wattage rating of 1000 watts/hour, and cool a 12 x 12 room 1 degree every four minutes, whereas a 10k Btu cooler may have a rating of 500 watts/hour, but take 20 minutes to cool the same space 1 degree, thereby using more energy.

What figure do you want to quantify? The amount of heat that will be removed, the time it will take, or the cost to remove that heat?

Answer 4

The higher the BTU number, the more cubic feet of space the air conditioner will cool. The BTU rating should match the space you are trying to cool. If the BTU is too low, it won't cool sufficiently, if it is too high, you are just wasting money and energy that is not needed. Kind of like putting a really big engine in a very small car. It would use a lot more gas to get you to your destination.

Answer 5

First of all, 92000 is LARGER than 10,000.

A BTU is a British Thermal Unit and in an air conditioner the BTU capacity denotes the amount of heat the system can move in an hour. A BTU is the amount of heat required to raise one cubic centimeter of water one degree Fahrenheit.

Answer 6

As you have seen already, BTU stands for British Thermal Unit. It is a heat index number for a/c applications. The higher the number, the better the transfer of heat which cools the air. When you hear it referred to in tons such as a 3 ton central air unit, just covert it. 12,000 BTU = 1 ton. As to the upstairs room being hard to cool, heat rises and in doing so creates a greater service requirement on your unit. In most cases, bigger is better. Faster cooling, less work on the unit itself and longer life.

Answer 7

British Thermal Unit

Answer 8

British Thermal Unit.

Answer 9

BTU stands for british thermal units.And no to sec. part of your q.10,000 btu is anmid range size and will not work as hard to cool the same amount of space as smaller one.

Answer 10

British Thermal Unit, its basically a measurement of how powerful your air conditioner is. The higher the more powerful and also consumes more energy normally