Sizing Window AC


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Old 10-09-17, 06:25 AM
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Sizing Window AC

Son moved into a rental house and are now expecting. The former room for storage will become the babies room (after a little fixing up). It is almost 300 square feet. Previously there was a 230 volt AC window unit in there, outlet still there and working. What is the largest BTU (or best) we can install without too much cycling. In the rest of the house there are 3 other window units so it could help with cooling the whole house to some extent, house is 3 bedroom, two bath. Thank you for any input.
 
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Old 10-09-17, 06:51 AM
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I don't see how you could go higher than 6,000 BTUs in that size room or how good a window unit is for a baby in such a small space. At one time, some units had a 5 speed fan & now they have 3 speed fans. Even on low speed, I felt like I was off to the races.
 
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Old 10-09-17, 11:27 AM
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Was trying to use the 230 volt as it is a dedicated circuit and the house being older, not sure how well a smaller one would work plugging it into a regular outlet which most likely has a lot on each circuit.
 
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Old 10-09-17, 11:56 AM
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Find the breaker that controls one of the regular outlets, turn it off & see what else is out.
 
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Old 10-09-17, 12:54 PM
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He lives in a small town about 3 hours away so it will be a few weeks until I will be able to do that. Was hoping to start looking for an AC unit. Did forget to mention that he was hoping it would also have heat.
 
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Old 10-09-17, 02:02 PM
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A heavy duty unit that would require all that voltage just isn't needed for that small space. Is that what the previous owners had or was that outlet used for something else? Now that you mentioned heat, is there no heat there either? Describe the heating & AC in the rest of the house. Are you sure that the room is suitable as living space?
 
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Old 10-09-17, 04:03 PM
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As far as I know.... the smallest BTU cooling unit that runs on 240v is 12K. LG makes one as well as a Friedrich. They do have heat too.
 
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Old 10-10-17, 06:26 AM
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There was a very old AC in the room, but we just took it out and did not even see if it worked. It did not look operational. The room is livable but they had been using it as a storage room since there are two other bedrooms and it was just two of them. There is a smaller AC in each of the other smaller bedrooms and a large unit (230 volt) in the dining/kitchen/living room. As far as heat, they have a large wall hung propane heater in the dining/kitchen/living room that heated up the whole house last winter although it was a mild winter. I think the idea with the heat in that room is to make sure the baby would have heat on cooler nights where it might not be necessary to run the propane heater for the whole house.
 
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Old 10-23-17, 11:31 AM
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Went down this weekend and we decided to go with a smaller unit. The house only has 2 prong outlets in this room. What are the options for changing out the outlet. Would a GFI outlet solve the 3 prong issue and is there a better option with no ground present.
 
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Old 10-23-17, 12:29 PM
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You can buy a adaptor plug at HD or lowes.
 
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Old 10-23-17, 12:29 PM
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The outlet can be replaced with a 3 prong outlet but you still don't know what's inside the wall. Is there BX or Romex? If it's as old as you say, the box should be metal. Those things will answer your ground question.
 
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Old 10-24-17, 06:29 AM
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Thank you for the responses. Will check on next visit.
 
 

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