The dog days of summer are definitely here, and like most homeowners, you are likely doing all you can to stay cool while keeping an eye on your energy usage. There are a number of factors that can affect your whole home cooling, and one of these factors is daytime heat gain. As you can probably guess, the term “daytime heat gain” refers to extra heat your home may take on throughout the day during the summer months. Some homes can see as much as 10 extra degrees in daytime heat gain, which is extra heat your AC is going to have to battle. What contributes to daytime heat gain? Let’s take a look.
Factors That Create Heat Gain
There are 6 key ways in which your home gains heat during the day in the summer months:
- Heat given off by the occupants in your home
- Heat given off by the appliances in your home
- Heat moving into your living spaces via conduction (through walls, windows, ceilings)
- Heat from humid air coming into the home
- Heat from cool air loss (outside hot air coming in while cool indoor air escapes)
- Radiant heat from the sun
Latent Heat Gain and Sensible Heat Gain
An important item to remember with daytime heat gain is that there are two kinds of heat gain that affect your total amount of heat gain: latent heat gain and sensible heat gain. Latent heat gain refers to heat gain associated with water in your indoor air. This can be humidity as well as body heat from the occupants of your home. Sensible heat gain refers to heat gain that originates with the temperature of the air. To get an accurate total heat gain number, it’s important that these two types of heat gain are part of the overall calculation.
Always Work with an Expert
Daytime heat gain is necessary factor to know when calculating what size air conditioner you need, whether it’s a first-time installation or a replacement AC system for your home. The air conditioning pros at Bartels Heating & Cooling can help you with your new AC installation in West Chester, OH by taking the first step with the correct calculation of your home’s cooling load.