Our energy bill has skyrocketed – whats going on?
The new air conditioners are not that expensive to run. They come with Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratings (SEER) of 13 as a minimum and go as high as 19. The older machines had ratings down around 6 or even lower. If your energy bill has skyrocketed, there probably is a problem somewhere in the system. Upon installation, a new air conditioner must be tested and have the refrigerant charge accurately adjusted. They are not preset by the factory because every job site has different conditions. A study by researchers in Texas found that a unit where there was a refrigerant undercharge of 23% resulted in a 52% efficiency loss. North Carolina Alternative Energy Corp. found that 90% of the units they tested exhibited some sort of energy wasting problem, 50% had an improper refrigerant charge and 40% had inadequate airflow. Proper installation of the air conditioner and testing of the system as a whole is crucial to performance and energy savings.
