The first question you will ask yourself when looking at installing a solar air conditioner is,” What size unit do I need?” The answer to this question will depend on a few factors, but the main one is the room size.
The size of the Solaeris solar air conditioner you need will depend on the size of the area you want to cool. As a rule of thumb with air conditioners, you would need a 12000 BTU unit for rooms up to 25sq m, an 18000 BTU unit for areas up to 30sq m, and a 24000 BTU unit for areas up to 40sq m.
Let’s examine the other factors that would determine what size solar air conditioner you need, how to measure the room size, and what effect insulation, airflow, and windows would have on the solar air conditioner size.
What Size Solar Air Conditioner Do You Get
At Solaeris, we have three sizes of the solar air conditioner. The 12000 BTU, 18000 BTU, and 24000 BTU suit specific room sizes.
The 12000 BTU solar air conditioner is ideally suited to rooms up to 20sq m but can work in areas up to 25sq m. The 18000 BTU unit is suitable for 25sq m and up to 30sq m, while the 24000 BTU unit would be ideal for areas from 30sq m – 40sq m.
How Do You Measure The Area Size You Want To Cool
Measurements are done in square meters; to do this, you measure the length of each wall and multiply them together. So if you have a room that is 6m x 4m, your room area is 24sq m.
You can measure this using a tape measure or pacing it with a 1m length step as you walk the wall. At this point, you don’t have to measure the ceiling height, although this will affect how effective the air conditioner will be in that space –we will address that later on.
What Other Factors Affect The Size Of The Solar Air Conditioner I Need
With a solar air conditioner, you need to ensure that no additional air flow brings warm air into the space you want to cool. This will increase the temperature of the air in the room and reduce the cooling effect of the solar air conditioner.
Keep the doors and windows in the room closed, and ensure that the window vent kit is properly installed and sealed.
Insulation is another factor as most of the ‘coolth’ in a home or room escapes through the ceiling, so to have a solar air conditioner be more effective, install good insulation in your roof.
Windows are another factor as they allow heat into the space, so if you have blinds or curtains in the room, use them when the air conditioner is on to reduce the inflow of heat through the glass, use UV window film to filter out the UV and heat from the sun.
Very high ceilings or thatched roofs will also impact the cooling effectiveness, so you may need a larger unit to compensate for a larger area volume, even if the room area is small. So if you have a 5m x 4m room, but you have a 4m ceiling, you would possibly need an 18000 BTU solar air conditioner, even though the room size of 20sq m should require a 120000 BTU unit.
Conclusion
Unless you have very high ceilings, you can use a 12000 BTU unit in areas between 20sq m and 25sq m; an 18000 BTU unit in areas between 25sq m and 30 sq m, and a 24000 BTU unit in areas between 30sq m and 40 sq m.
Of course, you can always use larger units in smaller areas, not smaller ones in larger ones. Remember, because these are solar air conditioners, you won’t use power at all, so even if you have a smaller unit in a larger space -it doesn’t matter because you can run it all day for free!