{"id":1006,"date":"2021-06-07T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2021-06-07T19:29:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T23:29:16","slug":"lets-talk-about-limits-your-ac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/air-conditioning-service\/lets-talk-about-limits-your-ac\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk About Your the Limits of Your AC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1007\" src=\"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/advanced-thermostat-on-hot-day-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"advanced-thermostat-on-hot-day\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/advanced-thermostat-on-hot-day-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/advanced-thermostat-on-hot-day-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/advanced-thermostat-on-hot-day.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>You know that you can\u2019t press down the pedal of a car and expect it to accelerate forever. The car\u2019s motor has a top speed, a point where it mechanically cannot put out more power. The same applies to your home\u2019s air conditioner. Even if the thermostat lets you set a temperature lower than 60\u00b0F (the standard lowest setting), you couldn\u2019t keep making your house colder and colder until you could freeze ice cream in it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">Of course, you don\u2019t <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">want<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\"> your house this cold\u2014but how cold can you make it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">Knowing the answer to this question can help you in the future with setting your thermostat and avoiding placing strain on the AC. Below we\u2019re going to look at the cooling limitations of your AC, it\u2019s \u201cmaximum speed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><b>How Cold Can My AC Make My Home?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">Based on the thermostat, you can\u2019t lower the temperature of the house below 60\u00b0F. But that\u2019s just a limit set by the thermostat. The <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">mechanical<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\"> limit of the air conditioner is its <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">temperature differential<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">. The air conditioner doesn\u2019t have a lower limit on how cold it could make the house, but it has a limit on how much it can change the indoor temperature compared to the outdoor temperature. In other words, the cooling <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">difference<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\"> the AC can make.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">Your air conditioner, like all other residential air conditioners, has a temperature differential of 20\u00b0. It can lower the indoor temperature of your house 20\u00b0 below the temperature outside. And for our local weather, that\u2019s usually more than enough!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">We\u2019ll use an example for a <\/span><a href=\"\/service-areas\/brighton-mi-hvac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">Flushing, MI, HVAC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\"> system based on average summer heat. July is the hottest month in Flushing, with an average high of 82\u00b0F. The temperature rarely reaches 90\u00b0F. On an 82\u00b0F day, an air conditioner with a 20\u00b0 temperature differential can make a house 62\u00b0F\u2014colder than most people find comfortable. Since the recommended energy-saving setting on a thermostat for the daytime when people are home is 78\u00b0F, an air conditioner will have no problem keeping a home cool at the peak of summer. Even on the odd 90\u00b0F day, an AC can cool a house down to 70\u00b0F\u2014still more than cool enough.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>If Your AC Isn\u2019t Meeting the Requirements<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">You\u2019ve read the above, you know about temperature differential \u2026 and yet when you set the thermostat to a temperature the air conditioner should be able to handle without strain, the house still doesn\u2019t feel cool enough. If this happens to you, there\u2019s either something wrong with the AC or the thermostat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">One possibility is that the AC is undersized for the house. The temperature differential only applies if the air conditioner was correctly sized at installation so it can put out enough cooling for the space to lower it by 20\u00b0. If you have a new AC that isn\u2019t keeping up and runs continuously, then it\u2019s likely an amateur installed it. The only solution to this is to have a professional replace the system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 500;\">If the AC isn\u2019t new, then the best approach when it can\u2019t keep up with your cooling needs is to call our technicians. We\u2019ll find out if there\u2019s a malfunction and have it fixed so your AC will do the job you need from it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>First Choice Heating &amp; Cooling serves Fenton, Linden, Holly, and the Surrounding Areas. If your home had a voice \u2026 <\/b><a href=\"\/contact\/schedule-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><b>it would call First Choice!<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Below we\u2019re going to look at the cooling limitations of your AC, it\u2019s \u201cmaximum speed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[90,102],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-conditioning-service","tag-air-conditioning-repair","tag-flushing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}