What Happens If Your Air Conditioner Is Too Big For Your Room Or Home?

If you live somewhere with serious summer heat, you'll likely want an air conditioner of some kind. On paper, getting huge, powerful window or freestanding units, or a sizeable whole house system to keep your bedrooms, living room, and other areas cool seems like a great idea. In reality, you can easily get an air conditioner that's too big for your space. While a big unit may seem like a great way to cool a smaller area quickly and effectively, mismatching your unit size with your space can have consequences.

One of the biggest issues with this setup is that the air conditioner can't remove moisture from your space. It quickly cools the rooms down and turns itself off, not having ample time to suck out the moisture in the air. What you're left with is a cold, damp room that can feel more uncomfortable than refreshing. The added moisture creates a prime environment for mold growth, adding a layer of health risk to the damp discomfort. Not to mention, an oversized unit will turn on and off more frequently — a process known as short cycling. As a result, you'll run up your electric bill for no good reason with these extra startup energy spikes.

All that is to say, if you're looking into major air conditioner brands, make sure the unit you choose is right for your space. Fortunately, matching your floor plan to the size and power of the right air conditioner isn't too difficult.

A few key steps will help you choose the right-sized air conditioner for your space. For one, you need to do some measuring of the area, or areas, you want to cool, whether that's a single room, a single floor of a house, or the entire thing. Using this square footage, you can determine what type of air conditioner best suits your needs. If you just want to cool a bedroom, a window unit is fine. If your entire house is uncomfortable in the summertime and you have the money, a central air conditioning system is a wise choice.

From here, you can deduce the size and power level of the air conditioning system you need. This involves looking at the correct tonnage — it may seem strange, but air conditioner capacity has been measured in tons for ages – as well as BTUs. Both of these measure an air conditioner's cooling capacity, with tons reserved for larger amounts. A good rule of thumb is 600 square feet per ton, or per 12,000 BTU. So, you take a look at your square footage, calculate the correct BTU or tonnage, and seek out units that come close to or hit exactly on that amount. This way, you avoid buying an overpowered or underpowered air conditioner, ensuring comfortable cooling, effective moisture reduction, and reasonable energy use.

Air conditioning in any form is crucial for at-home comfort, so you want to set it up right. That means taking the time to select a unit or system that cools and dehumidifies effectively, without running up your electric bill.