How to Determine a Heat Pump Size
Heat pumps are designed to pump warm air though your house. You may find that your heat pump is not working or isn't working correctly and you may need to replace it. Heat pumps are necessary to keep your house warm in the winter months.
Things you will need:
- Calculator
- Paper
- Pen or Pencil
- Tape Measure
- Get your tape measure and measure the length and width of every room in your house to find the area in square feet. Measure each room in the house that is being used. Don't measure garages, attics, or closets.
- Write down your measurements on a piece of paper with a pen. Make sure to write down every room's measurement on the piece of paper. To get the square feet of the room you will multiple the length by the width and this number will be the square feet of the room.
- Get your calculator and add together the square area of every room to get the square footage. You may also look on your tax bill some will show the square footage of the rooms.
- Get your calculator and you will need to convert the square foot into tons. This means for every 1,000 square feet it is equal to 1.5 tons of capacity. You will need the tons because heat pumps measure in tons of capacity.
- Get the capacity number and it will need to be converted into BTU (British Thermal Units). Heat pumps are listed as kW size the BTU number is needed to determine the kW. For each ton of capacity it is equal to 12,000 BTU. Calculate all your BTU together to get the correct size.
- Convert the BTU to kW. You will need your calculator for this step. Each BTU is equal to 0.293 kW. If the number does not equal a specific heat pump size which is very likely, round up to the nearest number that a heat pump comes in. This will help to account for heat loss from windows and leaks in the house.