Posting Date: June 9, 2017
Posted by: Al Hill, Las Vegas Branch Manager

The alphabet soup of today’s energy efficiency acronyms can sometimes make buying a heating or cooling system confusing – but don’t worry, Broward has you covered!

Here’s a quick reference for five of the most common – and important – energy efficiency abbreviations you’ll find when you’re shopping for a new home comfort system.

• AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) – Measures how efficiently a furnace or boiler uses fuel during a complete heating season; a higher AFUE rating means your system is more efficient.
• BTU (British Thermal Unit) – The amount of energy needed to raise or lower the temperature of a single pound of water by one degree F.
• BTU/h or BTUh (BTUs per hour) – The total number of BTUs produced by a heating or cooling unit in an hour. This is the number you’ll hear when someone describes the capacity or size of a furnace or air conditioner: a “6,000 BTU air conditioner” produces 6,000 BTUh.
  Related to BTUh is the capacity term “tons”: one-ton system outputs 12,000 BTUh – about enough to cool 400 square feet of floor space.
• EER (Energy Efficiency Ratio) – A ratio of the BTU output of cooling system and the total electrical power input needed to produce that output. EER assumes a constant outside air temperature and 50 percent relative humidity (compare to SEER below).
• SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio) – Measures AC and heat pump efficiency over an entire cooling season. SEER compares the total cooling output to the electrical energy input needed during the same time frame (higher SEER rating = higher efficiency.

Want to see how much energy you can save with a high efficiency upgrade to your HVAC system? Check out our online Energy Cost Savings Calculator.

Or better yet – contact us today for a FREE estimate on an equipment upgrade and we’ll walk you through the savings in person!