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The Best Way to Cool Your Space


Summer is nearly here, and your home will soon be heating up. But just the thought of looking for a new air-conditioner is enough to make you break out in a sweat. How do you know which one to buy, and how it will affect your energy bill? What if your apartment building doesn’t allow window units? Not to worry: We’ve done the research for you.


The key to comfort and savings is finding the unit that fits your space. An air-conditioner that isn’t powerful enough won’t effectively cool your home and could end up inflating your power bill. One that is too powerful will work too quickly, shutting off before most of the humidity has been removed, leaving your place cool but clammy. And all that cycling on and off can stress the equipment and shorten its life span.

Energy efficiency is another factor: The energy efficiency ratio (EER) is a measure of how well a cooling system will operate when the temperature outside is 95 degrees. Look for an air-conditioner with an Energy Star label, indicating that it is more efficient than required by government standards. But remember that no matter how efficient your air-conditioner is, you won’t get the most for your money — or be as comfortable as you could be — if your home is not properly sealed and insulated.

With all of that in mind, here are some guidelines to help you find the right air-conditioner for your home.

CENTRAL AIR Central air-conditioning is the most popular type of cooling system in the United States. More than 75 percent of households with a cooling system use central air, according to the latest data from the United States Energy Information Administration.

But New York City is one of the big outliers. The reason: Its building stock is older than that of most major American cities, according to estimates by the Department of Buildings, with about three-quarters of the buildings constructed before 1960 — in other words, before central air-conditioning became popular. Retrofitting older apartments with central air means installing a condenser outside the home, a fan-and-coil system inside and ducts to distribute the cooled air. That’s not cheap, and it requires space, a resource lacking in many New York City apartments.

“It is very tricky to retrofit a building that was built without air-conditioning,” said Andrew Gerringer, the managing director for new business development at the Marketing Directors, a New York development, leasing and marketing company. “Buildings that have installed it” — including, he noted, some apartments at 190 Riverside Drive and Manhattan House at 200 East 66th Street — “have done so through great expense and aggravation.”

Even if you are willing to give up a closet to install a central air system in your prewar apartment, your building may not allow you to put a condenser on the roof. And retrofitting an apartment built without ductwork could be prohibitively expensive. In the best-case scenario — where you don’t have to run a pipe through your neighbor’s kitchen ceiling to get to your compressor — installing or replacing a whole-house system can cost, on average, from $2,650 to as much as $15,000, according to Fixr.com, a site that tracks home improvement costs.

Another consideration: Most central air systems lack room-by-room control, so if you want to cool the bedroom while you’re sleeping, you’ll have to cool the rest of your home, too. Still, because the ducts and mechanical components are built in, effectively hidden within the walls, floors or attic, central air is the most discreet option.

If you decide it’s right for you, check out Consumer Reports’ buying guide for reliability by brand and be sure to consider the system’s Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER), which measures how efficiently a central air-conditioner operates over an entire season (like the energy efficiency ratio, the higher the number, the better).

For the full story, click here - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/realestate/the-best-way-to-cool-your-space.html 


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