When picking out your portable air conditioner, you may be wondering just how much it’s going to cost you in the long run. It’s definitely something to think about, especially if you plan on using it over a longer period of time or if you live in a particularly warmer area, that requires an air conditioner for multiple months’ usage at a time.
Electricity usage definitely depends on a few factors. One of these factors include how large your Portable Air Conditioner is, because of course, the larger the unit, the more power it expels and therefore the more it’s likely to cost.
However, you might be surprised at just how low your energy costs are likely to be, especially with smaller and more compact portable air conditioners. Let’s take a look at how you can keep an eye on electricity costs.
Check your portable air conditioner’s BTU rate
BTU stands for British Thermal Unit, and is the unit of measurement used to determine exactly how much energy your portable air conditioner will expel. The higher the BTU, the larger the portable air conditioner’s capacity is, and most likely, the higher your electricity costs will be.
In order to discover exactly how much your portable air conditioner could end up costing you, these BTUs need to be converted to kilowatt-hours.
Let’s look at an example. For basic BTU outputs, you’ll find for example that a portable air conditioner that has a 10,000 BTU rating, will expel 2.9 kWh, and a 14,000 BTU rating will expel 4.1 kWh. That’s not a lot of electricity per se, but if you need to use it for multiple hours on end, you may find the price a little higher than you hope in say, a 30 day period.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to work out this sum yourself to find your answer. These ratings are really easy to find, and should be on your portable air conditioner’s power consumption stats sticker which you’ll either find on the unit itself, or in the box or set-up instructions that come with it.
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Cost by area
In order to guarantee the correct range of costs applicable to you and your portable air conditioner, it’s important to check out how energy is calculated in the area that you live in, meaning that ultimately, the costs of electricity will differ for everyone.
Make sure you check out your location’s energy costs, and then calculate your BTUs into kilowatt-hours to see exactly how much you could face paying for your portable air conditioner.
A Tip to help keep your electricity usage down
Portable air conditioners work similarly to refrigerators, cooling room temperature air and expelling that cool air back out into the room you’re in. With that in mind, it’s incredibly important to ensure that all doors leading into the room you have your portable air conditioner in are closed, to avoid unnecessary energy waste.
The less energy your portable air conditioner has to create, the better it can cool you room down, and the less it will cost overall.
As you can see, with such a wide range of factors contributing to the electricity usage of your portable air conditioner, there’s no simple, straightforward answer to the question. However, with the right knowledge, you can certainly work out exactly how much yours is likely to cost in the long run.
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Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API